A Tangled Web Part 8: Endgame
by ordinaryguy2
Summary: The Borg Queen moves to take over The Land of the Lost, and from there...the Multiverse. Don't forget to read and review please.
1. Chapter 1

A TANGLED WEB Part 8: Endgame

Chapter 1: Double Jeopardy

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters written in this story. All major characters are owned by rich corporations and I am just borrowing them. Also, I am making no money by writing this story. I write this for the fun of it as well as to better my creative instinct and grammatical skills.

Classification: Crossover

Suggestions: If you are unsure of what's going on, then go back and read A Tangled Web Part 1. If you are unaware of more current events like what Q and the Doctor are upset about, then go back and read the last chapter of A Tangled Web Part 7.

Also, I am basing most of this landscape of Borg battle from the 70's television show 'LAND OF THE LOST. Not the poor remake of the show in the nineties. I will try to cover everything very thoroughly so even if you are unfamiliar with the show you will understand what is going on. If you want to refresh you memory or check out information on it yourselves, then I recommend going to answers dot com (i have to type the web site that way or it may not post onto the site correctly) and type in 'LAND OF THE LOST'. Check out the one from the 70's and about characters. You will find it rather interesting. You will also learn about Sleestak, which are very important.

A TANGLED WEB Part 8: Endgame

Chapter 1: Double Jeopardy

The bar was still even though it was almost half full to capacity. Moments before, Captain Janeway had had harsh words with Q, who much to Picard and Guinan's surprise, seemed rather hurt by the one-way exchange.

Following that, everyones'eyes followed Tom Paris, Neelix, Tuvok and Harry Kim as they carried away Chakotay on a stretcher. A few people wept while others became withdrawn. Except for Nog, who had been returned previously to Sickbay, the rest of the away team were in good health and watched the spontaneous preceding in the close company of their friends knowing full well it could have easily been any of them there lying dead with Chakotay. Ezri Dax in particular seemed more solemn yet angry.

After a moment, Guinan broke the silence. "Where do we go from here, Q?"

Those sitting at the Admirals' Table seemed annoyed at this non-Starfleet woman taking the reigns, but they knew she had history with Q, and Captain Picard recommended using her as a buffer with Q when ever possible.

"It's like I've said before," Q said, over dramatizing his exasperation. "Q2, my fellow Q, set me up from the beginning. I've already let the rest of the Q Continuum know about it. Once they verify it, I should be able to snap everyone to their own universes and unborgify everyone."

"And those that died during all these Q antics?" Janeway mentioned, through clenched teeth. "What about them?"

"Again, I'm sorry, Kathryn, but-"

"Keep your apologizes, Q. At least until you mean them."

Before Q was able to respond, there was a flash of light which revealed another Q in their midst.

"You!" roared Q.

"This is all your fault!" yelled back Q2.

Both suddenly looked up at the same time as if someone of importance in the ceiling had addressed them.

David Banner, who had immigrated to this dimension at the conclusion of one of the previous Borg defeats, whispered into Guinan's ear. "What are they doing now?"

"The Q Continuum has contacted them."

Banner sensed nothing in or around the ceiling. Glancing around at the others in the room, he was pretty sure that no one else could sense anything either. "Can you hear them?" he whispered.

"Not with you asking questions in my ear. Shhhh!" She turned back to stare intently at the ceiling. The rest of the people in Quark's exchanged glances with each other but did not dare speak. Something was happening. They just were not sure what.

"But that's ridiculous!" protested Q.

"I agree!" said Q2, who turned away with his arms crossed in objection.

Q pleaded his case. "You have already punished me. I don't see why I should have to go through it all again just to punish him, too."

The silent answer that they got seemed to stun them both, yet Guinan burst out laughing. The El-Aurian female took a moment to regain her composer. "Well, Q, if that doesn't make you sit up and think of the consequences of your actions, then I don't think anything will." She moved past the frightened Quark, and began foraging behind the bar, until she pulled up a dark bottled beverage.

"What's going on, Q?" Picard finally demanded.

Both Q and Q2 looked grim, hurt and scared, which was not good for self-proclaimed omnipotent beings. Q had gotten in trouble with the Continuum when he had playfully let the Borg know about technology that would allow them to spread to alternate universes. Q2 had tattled on Q's actions to the Continuum, but evidently not before he had rerouted various groups of dimensionally 'sliding' drones to specific universes that would draw more questions than answers for anyone that was looking for them. Once Q had figured out this ploy, he had hurriedly informed the Continuum of the others manipulations, hoping to get Q2 in trouble while getting himself out. The Q Continuum had other ideas, however, and neither Q entity seemed to like the answers they were getting.

Q looked at his rival with disdain; Q2 returned the look. "My fellow Q and I get to match wits and luck against each other. Whoever loses will loses all their powers and will have to live out their days as a lowly mortal."

"So," Picard said, thinking quickly, "that means that we are no longer involved in your disciplinary action, correct?"

"I'm afraid not," Q2 responded with a smirk. "It looks like you are going to be more involved than ever."

Guinin choked on her drink. "What?"

"You should be more intent on listening to everything next time," Q2 commented. "You evidently missed some vital points when you went off to gloat."

Guinan scowled. "Enlighten me then."

"There is going to be one last battle against the Borg. And it's going to be winner take all."

The Doctor raised a hand and stepped forward, pushing past a few people in his way. "Pardon me, but if that is the case, then may I suggest-"

"The place chosen is the one you have in mind, time-lord," said Q. "The Continuum were not happy about the Borg invading there from our last venture in the American West. So this is their way of having us correct it."

The Doctor nodded. He wasn't sure what to make of all that but there it was and he'd have to make due with it.

"And just where is this last battle to take place?" asked Sisko.

Q flicked a hand casually. "Oh, a little spot of land tucked into a tesseract of space and time. I believe the Gallifreyans used them for instructional and educational purposes for training their young about non-sentient and sentient species in the outside universe."

"So it's basically a terrarium," pointed out Banner. "A small enclosure with soil and vegetation where outside observers can examine what the creatures trapped inside will do."

Questioning eyes turned to the Doctor who seemed too embarrassed or shamed to say anything more about it.

Guinan broke the silence. "So what exactly is this contest? What are the objectives? And how does it affect us?"

Q2 strutted forward. "I'll make it simple so your little minds can comprehend. Whoever stops the Borg wins."

"And you need us to do that?"

"He needs you," Q2 corrected, pointing to his counterpart. "And now it is time to select again."

"I'll go," came a raspy voice. There were some gasps as the wrinkled figure of Admiral McCoy ventured forward with the help of a reluctant Lt. Barclay.

"I admire the spirit," Q managed to say, trying to be diplomatic with Janeway's stern eye on him. "But I don't think you have what it takes to go against the Borg anymore."

"I have the experience," growled McCoy. "Besides, you can make me young again. I'd be fit for service."

Q looked skeptically at Q2. Q2 considered. "It will add to numbers against the Borg. Perhaps even speed things up. What do you say to two people from the old Enterprise, two from the new Enterprise, two from Deep Space Nine, and two from Voyager?"

"Agreed."

With a snap of his fingers, Admiral Leonard 'Bones' McCoy was not only youthful, but wearing his old Starfleet uniform from his younger days.

McCoy padded himself down checking everything. Nearby Data used a tricorder to scan the admiral discretely. "It's been almost a hundred years since I felt this good."

"Here." Guinan held out a tumbler of something dark. Without questioning what it was, Bones grabbed it up and took a deep swallow. "Oh, bourbon! The real stuff and not that synthahol garbage. Thank you."

"Time for the selections," Q2 stated. "And since you have chosen from the earlier Enterprise first, why don't you continue there?"

Q frowned, not liking following orders. But snapped his fingers. Ambassador Spock appeared next to McCoy dressed in gray robes. "Curious," he stated at the sights around him.

"Spock!"

"McCoy."

The younger version of McCoy pulled Spock into a bear hug, the affection unsettling the legendary Vulcan mildly. "Spock, you aren't going to believe what's been going on here!"

"Actually, I would," said Spock. "Q explained it to me when he transported me from Romulus. It is good to see you fit again."

"I have a century shaved off of me and that is all you can say?"

He seemed to regard the younger version of the Leonard McCoy he knew. "Yes."

Q2 contemplated the selection for a moment before making his own choices. "Let's see. For my side I think I prefer more of a warrior."

A flash of light left a figure standing confidently at Q2's side. Those who recognized Khan Noonien Singh were shocked. The rest of those in the room quickly picked up on the actually danger once they were informed of who he was historically.

"Wait, we can choose someone who has already expired?" Q said.

"I'm allowed to choose opponents of those you choose. I believe he qualifies."

"But he's dead!"

"No, I am not dead," Khan said, his eyes moving predatorily over the people in the bar. "Your friend, Q2, here, went back in time and took me from the Reliant just before it exploded, healed me, and brought me forward in time so that I could have my revenge against my mortal enemy, Admiral James Kirk, by killing those he most loved."

The silence in the room was deafening. "You're still nuts, Khan." McCoy tossed back another swallow of bourbon.

Before Khan could express his outrage, Q2 made his next choice. The figure of James T. Kirk appeared in their presence. Khan pounced at once attacking the man he hated more than any other. Q2 was surprised at this reaction. Odo moved to separate the two men but Captain Sisko put a restraining hand on his shoulder.

Finally, Q2 separated them in a burst of power. "Stop!"

Both men had blood running from their faces and different areas of their bodies.

"Treacherous dog!" spat Khan.

"Devious pacifist!" retorted Kirk.

McCoy laughed while Spock's eyebrow rose. "He's not our Kirk, Spock. He's the evil version of the man we knew from the Mirror Universe. I knew it from the moment I saw his uniform."

Both Kirk and Khan, breathing hard, glanced at McCoy. "It's true," said Q2. "Though you recognize each other, neither of you has actually met." In another flash, both men were healed of their minor injuries but neither man could look at the other without a snarl.

"Oh, you'll get a lot of team work out of those two," remarked Q.

"Just choose your next group."

"Very well. From the current Enterprise I choose-"

"I volunteer, Q." Captain Jean-Luc Picard stood up from his chair and began walking over by Spock and McCoy.

"Jean-Luc,-"

"We are going to need some fighters of our own," added the captain.

Seeing the resolve in Picard's face, Q assented. "Very well. First you, and for my second choice -." There was another flash of light. Ro Laren glanced around like a startled rabbit.

"I thought you were explaining things to people before they arrived?" Captain Picard said.

"I did. She's just still-"

"Apprehensive," Ro said, with a trembling voice.

Picard stepped forward and put a hesitant hand on her shoulder. "When we didn't hear from you…When the Marquis were killed by the Cardassians…I feared the worst."

"Well, you feared right. Evidently, Q here pulled me out of a Marquis base just as it was being blow up. If I want to keep on living, I have to help win this contest for him."

"Ro, I'm so sorry."

"Sorry? Sorry?" She looked around in disbelief, tears running down her cheeks. "Tell that to the twenty-two children I was teaching finger-painting three hours ago. Or the young man I had finally agreed to go on a date with tomorrow night. Oh, wait! Tomorrow isn't there anymore because Starfleet let the Cardassians blow us away!"

"Ro, I-"

"Pardon us, captain." Guinan and Deanna Troi were there. Without having to say anything more they led Ro Laren to a more private location where they could talk.

"Q!" He was angry. But this situation had also brought Ro Laren back from certain death. How should he feel?

"It's not his turn, Captain Picard." Q2 was passing back and forth as if in contemplation before stopping in front of Data. "Of course!"

Lore was there instantly. Looking down at the horror in his brother's face. "Oh, you have an emotion chip again! How is that working for you, brother?"

Data swallowed. "Very well."

"Hm, Let's test that, shall we? I'm going to have so much fun tearing apart your captain. I think I'll save his head for a wall mounting." He cocked his head to the side. "How does that make you feel, brother?"

"Captain," responded Data, in a very cold tone. "I have had Dr. Crusher and Worf keep a secret file to instruct others of the best and most effective methods to incapacitate me if I ever was taken control of or if we ever ran into my brother. Please take it and have the others in your group study it."

Lore smiled coldly at his brother. "When I return, I will find you." He stepped back to Khan and the Mirror universe Kirk.

"Definitely more effective," Q2 said, nodding approvingly. "I think some more stern attitudes are needed for my group." There was another flash of white light.

Romulan Commander Sela nodded smugly to Captain Picard before snapping to distasteful eye to Data. As she went to join Q2's ranks, she froze at the sight of Lore.

"Don't worry, my dear. I'm just his evil twin. Lore, at your services." He took her hand and kissed it. The only reason he succeeded in this action was because of the obvious distaste emanating from Picard and Data.

"Moving on to those with connections to Deep Space Nine," Q rushed forward before there could be another wordy delay. "I-"

"I'm going, Q." Sisko stood up.

"Fine. Captain Benjamin Sisko then." Q shook his head. If he ever got out of this with his powers in tact, he'd have to seriously consider giving up Human contact. "Now who else that has connections to Deep Space Nine that I'd be willing to use. Shakaar Edon? No. Keiko O'Brien? No. Grand Nagus Zek? Definitely not! Gowron? Maybe. General Martok? Yes! He'll do just fine!"

General Martok before them. Sisko greeted the one-eyed Klingon warrior while Worf hurried through the crowd to also give greeting.

"And it's my turn again. The first choice is rather obvious, I think. And a good choice, too." There was a flash and another figure appeared

Smiling at the audience, Gul Dukat glanced around. "Ah, Terok Nor. I find that there are times when I still reminisce about this place."

"It's called Deep Space Nine now," growled Sisko.

"I believe your people said it best. 'A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet'," spoke the tall reptilian humanoid.

"I believe the Cardassians are trying to do away with poetry, as well," pointed out Sisko.

Dukat grinned. "I believe your people also said 'every rose has it's thorn'. Nothing is perfect, but Cardassia is close, I believe."

Another flash of light revealed the female Changeling, who war the primary leader of the Dominion's military foray into the Alpha Quadrant. Murmurs and rumbles abounded in among the people now as they watched events unfold before them. Odo stood up and went to move forward. Kira tightened her hand on his and gave him an understanding look before releasing him. Though instead of talking to the female Shapeshifter, Odo instead stood ready with the rest of the security detail. For her part, the female Changeling said nothing, but chose to stand next to an annoyed Gul Dukat.

"And now from Voyager-" began Q.

"Will be me," said Captain Kathryn Janeway, as she stood and move toward the others.

"Kathy," Q said. "Everyone here knows of your bravery. You don't have to prove anything by going. This is the last venture against the Borg. Let someone else go."

"Q, I have to go. Let's leave it at that."

"At least I can do this. For my next choice, I choose Kes."

A being of energy formed in front of the two Q's.

"This won't do!" protested Q2. "She has to have a corporeal form."

Q was frustrated but didn't want to back down in front of Janeway. "Very well."

Kes was reunited with her physical body. She stared at her hands and then at the people in Quark's Bar.

"Kes?" Janeway said hesitantly.

"Captain? I…my powers?"

"Q?"

"I'm sorry, but in corporeal form she will be greatly reduced in power."

Kes straightened herself up. "I can manage."

"Kes?" came another voice.

"Neelix." She embraced her old lover. "It's been a long time."

"I've missed you," said the Talaxian, tears freely flowing. He pulled back and looked at her. "You've been told about this mission, I'm sure. Remember, the Borg are nothing to play around with. They take what they want and attack in force." He embraced her again. "Be careful. And please come back and see me before you leave for good."

"I will, Neelix."

"Enemies of Voyager, hmmm." Q2 seemed to contemplate that thought. "Janeway spread them out as her ship raced for the Alpha Quadrant. But then she was trying to get her ship and crew home. Let's start with the crew then."

A flash of light revealed a female Cardassian who smiled wily at Janeway.

"I thought we were through with you when you died, Seska."

"I just couldn't turn down Q2's proposal of coming here when it included not only facing you again but also whisking me away from my ship milliseconds before it exploded. It's sad about Chakotay. I would have loved to have gloated about my life extension. Too bad he didn't get the same opportunity."

"It's only a brief extension, Seska. I'll definitely be looking for you out there."

Q2 scratched at his chin. "I had thought to include Seska's mate, Maje Culluh, but I'd rather have a more formidable fighter. And I think I know just the one."

The last flash revealed the towering form of the being Janeway knew as only Alpha Hirogen, a leader of a species that lived to hunt other species and collect trophies. Ridges of small bumps trailed around up and around his face giving his species a very distinguishing attribute.

"Wait." Janeway shook her head. "When we last left the Hirogen we were at peace. I thought you could only recruit from our enemies?"

"You fought them and he's willing to face you again," answered Q2. "That should be simple enough for even you."

She turned to the Alpha Hirogen. "Why?"

"For my people, our future, and the promise of a great hunt," he answered. "Why else?"

The Doctor rushed up to the two Q entities. "Pardon, but with all that is at risk here, I can still bring my own recruits to this conflict, correct?"

"The Q Continuum were counting on it," said Q2, while Q rolled his eyes. "They are even allowing you to bring in more recruits, though only from those universes that have been affected by invaded by the Borg."

"Really, I'm surprised they were so obliging to add my interference."

"Because you side with Q? It gave me the opportunity to enlist my own time-lord to find wars to fight the Borg."

"You…you have a time-lord working for you?" The Doctor's eyes almost popped out of his head. "Who…who is it?"

"An old classmate of yours. He now goes by the title of the Master. A little egocentric, but he seems to be giving a good effort to live up to it."

"The Master knows where the Borg are?"

"Oh, yes. He seemed rather titillated at the prospect of going there."

"Is he coming here?"

"No, no, no. There's no need for him to come here. He's out recruiting already. I convinced the Continuum that you've already gathered some experience at all of this so my time-lord should have a head start."

The Doctor's jaw dropped. Then he turned and ran for his TARDIS. "Kenny! We have to go immediately!"

AUTHOR's NOTES

The rules have changed and the threat has grown exponentially. I'm sure everyone is wondering about that, but I'm not ready to reveal everything just yet. I've already got a bunch of scribbled notes that I have to type up and I can promise some surprises ahead. Some I have even surprised myself with. But this is the final Tangled Web and I'm going to have fun with it. So, what to look for next? Some unexpected crossovers and the Master's army.

Missing: A number of lost Klingons. Last scene on Holodeck 1 at Quark's bar jumping through a dimensional portal. We don't need them returned, but would love to know that became of them. Please write us a short story and let us know so we don't have to keep worrying about them. Thank you. And remember, they bite.

Please send reviews. I love hearing your thought and sometimes I can even work with your suggestions.

Q's TEAM

Admiral Leonard 'Bones' McCoy

Spock

Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Ro Laren

Captain Benjamin Sisko

General Martok

Captain Kathryn Janeway

Kes

Q2's TEAM

Khan Noonien Singh

Mirror Universe Captain James T. Kirk

Lore

Commander Sela

Gul Dukat

Female Shapeshifter

Seska

Alpha Hirogen


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 – Strangers In A Strange Land

ACT 1 - Sigmund

Slowly moving through the reeds in the shallows, Sigmund gently splashed away the unusual water bugs that he didn't recognize. His eyes darted back and forth, searching for the large two-headed long necked monster who's habitat this was. He wasn't sure if the water creature was a meat-eater or a plant-eater, but he was sure that he didn't want to end up in it's massive jowls while it figured out whether or not to digest him.

When he had been ocean diving of the coast of California five weeks prior, a sudden ocean quake had sucked him down into a chasm and he had come up in this marshy area. The quake -which had brought Sigmund here- had also evidently unsettled the two-headed creature, the likes of which Sigmund's poor mind had never conceived of before. Because of the massiveness of the monster, it stayed on the deep side of the marsh where a river seemed to trickle through the area. On the very shallow part of the marsh where Sigmund had taken up residence, there was a large mountain that he deemed unclimbable for him. He did find some caves and had managed some exploring, but even there he had found hissing lizard-like humanoids with lobster-like claws.

The loneliness of his situation weighed on him. He just wanted to get home and see his best friends, Johnny and Scott. So with the monster making no noise today, he hoped to slip away while it was sleeping.

He began to shiver in dread upon seeing the hulking form of the two-headed monstrosity as it lay across the marshy beach. Was it asleep? Hibernating? Or perhaps molting? As he edged closer he could see a path leading away from the marsh right in front of the giant monster. He'd have to pass right in front of it in order to escape. There was no other way out of marsh for him. He creped out of the water, trying not to make any sloshing noises.

As he moved forward he realized that the monster would not trouble him ever again. It was dead. Through the cloud of flies and other insects, he could see massive burns scorched into the monster's two heads to such an extent that the left one seemed to have cracked open like a broken gourd.

Shaking in fear, Sigmund moved up the path and away from the terrible sight, just as he heard voices approaching.

"Over here! You have to see this!"

"Holly! Will! You are getting to close to LuLu's marsh!"

"Hey, it's okay, Uncle Jack," answered Will. "You'll see in a minute."

Sigmund weighed his chances of getting back safely in the water before whoever saw him and realized he wouldn't make it in time so he did the next best thing. He plopped down on the side of the beach and hoped to be overlooked.

Will was a tall, young man about seventeen years old. He seemed athletic and looked as if he had just a touch of a rebellious streak about him. Holly was blond with pigtails and seemed very spunky for her early teen years. Uncle Jack, was in his mid forties and looked wilderness savvy. His eyes scanned back and forth through the reeds checking for predators.

"Take a look at this and tell me what you think happened," said Will.

"What did this?" It was a rhetorical question, but felt it needed saying seeing the enormous sight before him. Jack moved forward slowly at first as he tried accepting that something had managed to kill this two-headed terror. Reaching over to his right he grabbed a branch of a long dead tree and easily broke off a four foot branch. Using the branch he began poking the various scorch marks on the two heads.

"Uncle Jack?" It was Holly and though she didn't turn away she did seem a little paler to him.

"I'm just trying to find out what killed LuLu and how." He poked at something in the more intake head's mouth. Insects rose up in protest and a dragonfly with a four-foot wingspan dove at them. Jack ignored the dragonfly and using the stick he was able to open the mouth slightly enough for a dismembered hand to fall out. Holly screamed and Will pulled her into a protective hug.

"It's…all white," Jack said as he inspected the hand with the stick. He didn't know it LuLu was venomous, or if it was a topical venom, and he didn't want to find out the hard way.

"Is that veins sticking out of the stump?" Will asked.

"That's gross, Will!" Holly pulled out of the hug and socked him in the gut, but not hard.

"No. It's some kind of wire. There's hundreds in here."

"LuLu ate a robot?" Holly was willing to look now. Living in the Land of the Lost for three years, she had seen her share of carnage due to the fact that the local carnivorous dinosaurs were messy eaters.

"No again. This is real flesh," answered Uncle Jack. "I'm sure of it."

"Well, if LuLu ate the intruder, then what or who did this to her."

"Now that's a good question, Will." He stood up from where he had been hunched over severed hand. "Look!"

Sigmund almost jumped and ran for it. But Jack was pointing to the ground in front of him.

"There are footprints all over the ground here. Dozens of people, maybe. And they headed that way toward the Sleestak tunnels."

"Those aren't Sleestak footprints, Uncle Jack," said Holly.

"Yeah," agreed Will. "And for some reason it looks like whoever it was started wipe away the footprints with this big bundle of seaweed." Having made his point he kicked the pile of seaweed.

"Owww!" cried Sigmund

Will jumped back, while Sigmund jumped up and hurried as fast as he could move his many limbs toward the water. Seeing the bundle of seaweed running away, Will ran after it.

"Will! No!"

But the teen had already tackled the squirming bundle of seaweed. After a moment of questing with his hands, he quickly realized that what he had tackled was not a covering of any kind, but the creature itself. He leapt back bumping into Jack and fell to the ground

Jack stood over Sigmund for a moment and each of them took a long look at each other. The green creature at his feet looked to have only stood about three feet tall and appeared to be made completely out of seaweed. It had large, sad looking eyes and a rubbery, large face which seemed to take up much of his torso area. Long stands of seaweed trailed down his head with bushy large leaves much the way many teenagers were wearing their hair today. In his mouth, Jack could see one large tooth that looked like it was used to open clams with more than attacking anyone/

"Uncle Jack? What is it?" Holly helped Will to his feet but neither teenager took their eyes off the strange sight of Sigmund.

"I-I'm not sure, but I have my mythology right it just may be a Kraken."

"A Kraken?" Sigmund said, surprised at the idea. Krakens were huge and water bound, besides everyone knew than a Kraken would-.

"He spoke!" Holly exclaimed. "That means he's intelligent!"

"No." Will was emphatic. "He's just repeating what he hears said around him, like a parrot. Watch." Will took a step toward Sigmund. "Say something else."

"Something else?" Sigmund was puzzled, but most Humans never made sense to him.

"See," Will said. Holly looked at her brother with disdain.

"What else should I say?" Sigmund said. Will's jaw dropped but Holly laughed.

"Alright," Jack Marshall leaned on the stick he had been using while inspecting LuLu. "I think that query establishes your intelligence. What are you? For that matter, who are you?"

Sigmund stared at the large stick Jack was leaning on, and Jack almost felt embarrassed, like he had been accused of threatening to harm the pathetic looking ball of seaweed. He let the stick fall to the ground next to him so it wasn't too far away in case he needed it. Then he reached out a hand to help up the strange new life form. "I'm Jack. This is my niece and nephew Holly and Will."

"My name is Sigmund. I'm a seaweed sea monster."

"You're a monster!" exclaimed Holly.

"That's what your kind has always called my kind so I guess I am."

"Wait, how do you know English?" said Will, with a trace of doubt.

"Because we sea monsters spend a lot of time on the beach looking for clams. If a Human comes by we just throw ourselves down on the sand and look like something the surf had left. We hear a lot of Human conversation that way. And sometimes radios have been left behind. I can listen to music, too, then. That is until the batteries die."

Sigmund told the Marshalls about Johnny and Scott taking him in and letting him stay in their clubhouse so he could be safe from his family - Big Daddy, Sweet Mama and his two brothers Slurp and Burp – who were all real monsters in several definitions of the term. Then he told of his abrupt arrival here and being trapped in the march by LuLu's presence. The Marshalls told Sigmund of Holly and Will's own watery arrival into the Land of the Lost with their father Rick Marshall who was a park ranger. They had been struggling here for two years when a fluke accident seemed to transport their father back home to Earth and leave their uncle Jack, who had been searching for them, in his place.

"Sigmund, I know you didn't see what killed LuLu, but did you hear anything last night?"

Sigmund scratched his chin with a tentacle. "The sky was all strange. Red, billowing clouds and lots of lightning. It was like the end of everything. It was like the land was protesting what was about to happen." He paused as if remembering something. "I remember that seemed to be a bright, blue light down by where the monst- I mean, where LuLu resided." He looked over at the large two-headed corpse. Larger scavengers were starting to show up so he turned his head so as to not watch nature clean up after itself. "Um, she roared some, but that was normal from time to time. I did see some flashes of light but I figured it was just the lightning."

Jack nodded. "And do you know what made all these footprints in the sand?"

Sigmund glanced down. Normally he was very observant of tracks in the sand but his attention had been elsewhere. "Nope."

Jack knew he had to check this out. Will would want to come along, but he didn't want to leave Sigmund with Holly. Sigmund was still too new to be given that kind of trust. "Will, stay here with Holly and Sigmund. I'm going to follow these tracks and see who they belong to."

Will was about to protest but he knew the real reason for Jack's choice and he would have made the same call if he had been the older responsible adult in charge of their well-being. Still, he gave Sigmund a frustrated look as Jack went off.

ACT 2 – The Zarn

The Zarn looked up from where he'd been working on the gravity engines of his ship. Someone or something had tripped one of the proximity alarms he had set up around his small starcraft.

He detested this mysterious land and it's ability to defy the scientific laws he understood, effectively entrapping him here after his space faring vessel had somehow crashed in this awful misty marsh.

All of the other being trapped in this microverse were three dimensional lifeforms so they could not relate to a superior trans-dimensional life form like himself. In the puny three-dimensional minds of the Marshall family, who he despised, he was perceived as a humanoid shape outlined by shiny dots. His ship, being made of trans-dimensional material like himself, was also perceived by the Marshalls as outlined by shiny dots.

The small-minded Marshall family had interfered before when he had tried to escape the confines of this microverse causing his gravity engines to be destroyed at a crucial moment. And now that he had them partial operational again, he could only assume that the Marshalls were coming to interfere with his progress once again. True, the escape of his ship from this place would most likely destroy this Land of the Lost, but the Zarn would be safe and free. Considering his superiority over them, he would think they would accept that as a good thing regardless of what would happen to them. But the Marshalls were interfering types looking out only for themselves.

Well, he would just have to kill them with his telekinetic powers if they persisted. He would not have a repeat of last time. He had not sought this opportunity to kill them, as he was not an instinctive killer, but he would defend his only means of escaping this accursed place with lethal force.

He stepped out onto the exterior deck of his ship and searched with his mind to find the intruding Marshalls. Instead, he encountered four minds that emanated such fierceness that it drove him to his knees in agony. While his telepathic abilities allowed him to read the minds of lesser beings, it was his empathic sensors that left him vulnerable to the intense emotions of others. These creatures were fanatic hunters and they were not happy about being here.

He knew instantly where these new hostile aliens had come from. The night before, the night sky had turned red and showered lightning across the land. During this event, a large space-faring vessel had appeared in the sky and crashed into the nearby high hills. The Zarn had assumed that nothing had survived, but now he could see that was just wishful thinking.

He could see four of the large aliens and the long staff each carried, despite the fact that they were using a form of camouflage technology to mask their visual images from being detected optically. They seemed to be regarding him and his ship, but were having trouble perceiving them. The Zarn didn't move. He didn't want to be seen as a threat. They were looking for a threat. Any kind of threat that they can attack and tear into for the glory of the Hunt.

Finally, the lead hunter took off his mask exposing a large head with mandibles. He seemed to sniff the air briefly before turning away from the Zarn with disgust. The others turned and followed. The Zarn withstood the pain of the intense emotions while they were in his proximity. Regathering his strength, he hurried back into his ship. He had to fix his engines. His leaving this place was more paramount than ever.

ACT 3 – Cha-Ka

Cha-Ka was visiting with Sa and Ta for the day. He didn't do that very often but the instinct to be among his own kind from time to time over wrote his need not to be bullied. They were picking berries which meant Sa and Ta were gorging themselves. At moments they would grab for the berries that Cha-Ka had in his hand, but the small hairy humanoid was only keeping small or partially ripe berries there while stashing the large ripe berries in a small metal lunchbox that Holly Marshall had given him.

The Pakuni were of a short, chimpanzee-like humanoid form with long tuffs of fine body hair that covered their entire body except for their face and hands. Cha-Ka was shorter than the other two Pakuni and had often suffered from being on the weaker side of the pecking order. Being smarter than his two brethren, he usually stayed with the Marshalls who had unofficially adopted him. They shared their knowledge with him and he taught them about the Land of the Lost.

Ta and Cha-Ka looked up at the same time. Something unfamiliar approached which meant that they could only do one thing. Hide.

After the two Pakuni had hurried behind the bushes they had been foraging from, they noticed that Sa had not come with them. Waving frantically and hoarsely whispering Sa's name rewarded them with no response. Sa was just too busy feeding his face.

Cha-Ka took the metal lunchbox he carried on a strap, and tossed it at Sa, hitting the gluttonous Paku on the side of the head. Sa snarled at his two companions, then gave a curious look as he took in their frantic gestures. Finally sensing the approaching newcomers the Sa scampered around the brush to hide with his fellow Paku.

As the intruders approached, a voice rose high in indignation. "You transistorized erector set! How dare you blame me for this situation!"

"One merely has to look at the facts, Doctor Smith. It was you who found the open pylon. It was you who convinced Will Robinson into going inside and examining the interior console against my sound advice. Thus, the blame for coming to this foreboding planet falls on you."

"Ah!" exclaimed Dr. Smith, raising his forefinger. "But it was Will who managed to get you inside the confines of that accursed structure – a feat that I would have believed to be geometrically impossible – in order for you to examine its glowing console of stones."

As they came into view Cha-Ka determined that Dr. Smith was a man like the Marshalls but older. Will was the young redheaded man about Holly's age that walked ahead of the other two and seemed to be trying to ignore their bantering. It was the third figure that amazed the young Paku. It was a large metal figure that rolled on belts of some kind. It's head was featureless and seemed to be made of glass. On it's chest were lights and buttons that seemed to make the young Paku want to run over and push them.

"Cut it out, you two," Will said, being all too familiar with these arguments. "We have to figure out where we are and maybe find someone to help us get back to my family." The young man glanced down when his foot connected with an object on their path. "Hey! What's this?"

Cha-Ka gasped as Will brought up the lunchbox he had thrown at Sa.

"It's some kind of band memorabilia. Some musical group called The Monkees."

"Let me see that," Dr. Smith said with a stern tone, which seemed to relay the thought that Will couldn't possibly know what he was talking about. "Whoever heard of a band called The Monkees. My word!"

The Robot promptly answered. "The Monkees were a band created to capitalize on the band fad of that time period, which focused on a television show about four young musicians - Mickey Dolenz, Peter Tork, David Jones, and Michael Nesmith – who had numerous and zany adventures. The Monkees proved their ability as a true music group with such popular hits as 'I'm a Believer,' 'Last Train to Clarksville,' 'A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You,' 'Pleasant Valley Sunday,' and 'Stepping Stone.'"

Dr. Smith, now elated, turned to Will. "Do you know what this means? We are on Earth, my boy! Glorious Earth!" He got down on his knees and kissed the ground.

"Inconclusive data," said the Robot.

"What do you mean, 'inconclusive'?" Doctor Smith got back to his feet to face his verbal opponent. "What do you call this metal box then?"

"The box is irrelevant. It is the terrain to which I refer. This vegetation covers eras from various stages of Earth's development. There are also a number of non-terrestrial plants here. Yet all seem compatible here."

Will examined one of the plants close by. "So…someone carefully designed this place."

"That is hypothetically plausible," acknowledged the Robot.

"Poppycock!" Dr. Smith brandished the metal lunchbox before the robot. "And why, pray tell, would the great landscapers of this place choose rubbish like this box which is filled with-" He snapped it open. "Ugh, berries!"

Will reached over and sampled one of the berries. "Fresh, too."

"Warning, Will Robinson! I detect intruders spying on us!" The robot's tube-like arms extended as it moved into a position between it's ward and the possible threat.

"Where?" asked the young redhead.

"Behind those berry bushes."

Ta and Sa hissed threateningly once they realized they had been discovered. Backing away, the two Pakuni soon turned and ran away. Cha-Ka, however, stood up completely, more curious than afraid of the strangers.

"Oh my word! They're Neanderthals!"

"I don't think so, Dr. Smith."

"Oh really! And where did you take your classes in Anthropology? Hmm?"

"At Cambridge before we left Earth. But only two classes."

"I see. And those two classes taught you enough that you can tell at a glance that these…these hairy humanoids aren't related to the Human race?"

"Dr. Smith." Sometimes it was exasperating when trying to point out the facts to Dr. Smith. "I didn't say they couldn't be related to Humans. All I meant was that they aren't Neanderthals. Besides, we've meet lots of humanoid aliens that looked more Human than these hairy fellas."

"Ah, but they weren't totting around Earth memorabilia, were they?" He held up the lunch box.

"Cha-Ka's box!" Cha-Ka said suddenly.

"And he speaks an Earth language," grinned Dr. Smith.

Will just shook his head. Taking the box from Dr. Smith he carried it around the bushes to Cha-Ka, followed by the Robot, and eventually Dr. Smith.

"Cha-Ka," Will said, as he handed the lunchbox to Cha-Ka. "Cha-Ka, who gave you this lunchbox?"

Cha-Ka hesitantly reached for the metal box. When he had it he clutched it to himself but didn't run. Will asked him the question again, and Cha-Ka looked back to Will. "Cha-Ka's box. Holly give to Cha-Ka."

"Who's Holly? Is she the same as you?"

The young hairy humanoid looked at Will curiously. He tried using the few English words he knew carefully. "Cha-Ka Paku. Holly not Paku. Holly…like you."

Dr. Smith, standing behind Will, leaned forward and placed a hand on Will's shoulder. "So there are real people here!"

"And maybe they can tell us about this place," added Will. He turned back to Cha-Ka. "Cha-Ka, can you-"

There was a low growling nearby.

Cha-Ka became excited. "Aboba ba! Aboda ba! Fusaki!" He grabbed Will's arm and began pulling him toward the trees.

"Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!" warned the Robot, as it began extending its arms into a defensive posture.

"I don't think he means to hurt me, Robot. He just seems-" A load roar came from the far trees as a large prehistoric dinosaur know as an Allosaurus charged toward them.

"Don't leave me alone! Wait for me!" Dr. Smith hurried after the two while the Robot turned to deal with the threat.

Bursts of electricity shot out from the clawed appendages of the Robot striking the Allosaurus in the chest. The beast cried out but tried again to attack, consequently receiving another harsh dose of electricity. This time the several ton reptile gave in to gravity and fell to the Earth with its tongue hanging out.

The Paku stopped pulling on Will and gaped. Will walked up to the Robot and stared at the dinosaur. "Is it dead?"

"Negative, Will Robinson. I did not wish to endanger the ecology of this environment."

"You should have killed it!" shouted Dr. Smith from where he hid in the trees.

Cha-Ka pointed to the unconscious Allosaurus. "Alice."

"Alice?"

"Big Alice," amended the Paku.

A small whine came from the far woods and they could see a young Allosaurus their size looking at the situation with its mother but it was afraid to come forward. Cha-Ka pointed again. "Junior."

"I don't think you are the ones who named these creature, were you, Cha-Ka?"

Cha-Ka tilted his head in confusion.

Will sighed. "Who named them Alice and Junior?"

Cha-ka laughed and clapped his hands. "Holly! Holly give names! Marshalls give names!"

"Marshals?" Dr. Smith came forward reluctantly. "Then there is law enforcement here. We should seek out these marshals and get proper protection from them post hast! This place is perilous!"

"Very well, Dr. Smith." Will turned to Cha-Ka. "Can you take us to these marshals?"

Cha-Ka eyed the Robot skeptically.

"He won't hurt them," reassured Will.

Cha-Ka finally nodded. He scampered down the path a little ways and then turned to them. "Come," he beckoned.

ACT 4 - BENEATH THE LOST CITY

"Run!" The six kids ran down the dark tunnel were trailed by young unicorn colt.

"Wait!" The dark-haired teenager wearing chain mail and carrying a shield stopped, and the green robed kid behind him ran into him. "Knock it off, Presto." He dusted himself off. "Why are we running from these guys? They're so slow they can't possible catch up to us."

Hank, the leader of the group was dressed in a green leather outfit that was more suited for a wilderness area and carried a stringless bow. "Eric! These things know these tunnels! We don't!"

"I say we should stay and fight them!" said the eight year old wearing a horned helmet, and swinging a slightly glowing wooden club.

"Bobby, don't you dare use that thing down here," said the female redhead with the purple cloak. "You'll bury us under a ton of rocks."

"Aw, sis."

"We don't have room in these narrow tunnels to fight effectively," said the black female in the fur bikini and carried a long fighting stick.

"Diana's right," Hank said. "We need to get out of here."

"Hey! Look in here, guys!" Presto called, as he disappeared into a side tunnel.

The others hurried after only to find that the side tunnel actually opened up into a large room.

"Somebody lives here," Sheila pointed out.

Diana tapped a boiling kettle with her staff as she peered in, but turned away and held her nose. "I can tell you this much. I don't want to know what's for dinner."

"What are we doing here?" whined Eric.

Sheila looked up from where she had been examining some crystals lying on a table. "The Dungeon Master said, 'If you want to find a way home, you must find the one who is alone among many of his kind.' Or something like that."

"Pffft. More of DM's riddles," Eric waved hand dramatically in the air. "He always sends us to some strange place to puzzle out one of his mind-numbing riddles. And we never figure them out until we've already done whatever it is that we came to do."

"That's not always true," defended Presto, who was examining a strange stone doorframe outlined with mists. "Sometimes the riddles have helped us before we made a serious mistake."

Eric held up a finger. "Mistakes we wouldn't have made if the little bald twerp had just given us all the facts in the first place."

The coltish unicorn made a mewling noise as she sniffed some of the dried herbs in a clay pot. She sneezed and the pot tipped over spilling it's contents. "Uni!" Bobby pulled the orange-maned unicorn into a brief hug and away from the herbs. "What'd I tell you about stayin' otta other people's stuff."

"You are trespassing!" The accusation came from where stood another of the lizard-like humanoids that they had been running from ever since Dungeon Master had teleported them to these tunnels. He had lobster claw hands and the large insectoid eyes, wide flat mouth and a singular budding horn on his brow. The main difference was that he was bronzed while the others of his kind were dark green. He also wore an orange vest which may have been a badge of office.

The kids were into defensive positions, engaging their magical weapons. Hank was at the head with his energy bow drawn. "We don't want any trouble."

"And yet you intrude in our tunnels and my domicile."

Eric was having none of it. "Hey, we were dumped in your tunnels from another dimension. We were just trying to find our way our when your green scaled buddies jumped us."

The orange-vested sentient considered their words with a tilt of his head. "Regrettable."

"How so," asked Diana, still posed to fight.

"That your arrival coincides with attackers against my people at the far reaches of our tunnels near the marshes."

"We don't know anything about that!" protested Presto, as he tried adjusting his cloth magician's hat on his head.

"I can see that," said the newcomer. "Your appearance is nothing like the attackers who are all similarly attired." He moved forward and all the kids jumped back. "I will show you."

At the doorway more of the green lobster clawed people began to cluster with wooden crossbows and were hissing angrily. The orange-vested one turned and seemed to communicate with them but he didn't seem to speak. The hissing abated and the green scaly humanoids withdrew from the doorway.

The orange-vested one addressed the children again. "I am Enik the Altrusian. Those were my descendants of my people, and are now called Sleestak."

"Man, looks like they've fallen down the evolutionary ladder!"

Diana smacked the thoughtless teen on the back of the head while Enik seemed to glare at him.

"Sorry," Hank said. "Eric is a little…"

"Rude!" said Sheila.

"Outspoken," amended Presto.

"Arrogant," commented Diana.

"Dumb," added Bobby.

"Hey!" Eric looked outraged at his companions. "Whose side are you guys on anyway?"

Enik dismissed the antics of the Human children and turned to the stone doorframe that had mists flowing from it. He picked up a small rod that had a glowing elongated jewel suspended in a metal tetrahedral frame at the end. "This is a mageti. I am still working to fine tune it and get it back to full strength but it should suit my purposes for now." He waved it in front of the doorframe which quickly filled up with mist.

"Magic!" exclaimed Presto with delight.

"No," protested Enik. "Science."

"Isn't magic just a form of science that has not been understood?"

Enik regarded Presto for a moment. "Child, I detect great potential in you. Perhaps I may be willing to take you on as a student."

The redhead magician blushed and twisted his green hat awkwardly.

"Oh great! Presto's got a local college sponsor."

Diana put an elbow into Eric's ribs. "Don't mind him, Enic. He- Presto! Your hat!"

"What?" Ham and Turkey sandwiches were pouring out of his hat in which the interior was glowing.

"Oh boy! Dinner!" Bobby leapt at the food, quickly followed by Eric.

Presto shrugged, embarrassed as he let the hat continue to empty out onto a nearby table. "Sorry. It's a little hard to control sometimes." He stopped his hat and put it back on his head.

"Your hat?" Enik stared at the small mountain of food being attacked by the eager hungry young teenagers. "It is a type of transporting portal."

"Mmmm," he swallowed a bite of one of the sandwiches. "Most of the time it does stuff like that, but it can do other things as well. We, well, we ended up in this magical land and we were given these magical weapons to use to protect ourselves. Hank's the Ranger. He's got a bow that shoots energy arrows. Eric has a shield that makes protective force fields. He's the Cavalier. Diana has a fight staff that grows and shrinks. It's unbreakable and seems to make leverage work to her advantage. She's the Acrobat. Sheila is, well, she's considered a Thief due to her Cloak of Invisibility but I think her feelings would be hurt if anyone thought she'd actually steal from them. And Bobby, he's Sheila's eight year old brother, he got a club that can pretty much break anything so he's the Barbarian of the group. And I, heh, I'm the Magician thanks to my hat. And as interesting as all our adventures have been, the truth is we just want to get home again."

"Interesting." Enik turned to the temporal doorway and extended the mageti again. The mists turned and after a few moments it began focusing on narrow caverns where grayish cyborgs were converting a number of captured Sleestak into cyborgs like themselves.

"Oh my word!" Sheila covered her mouth in horror. The others put down their food and stared in disbelief at what was happening."

Enik couldn't hold the mageti steady as his anger and revulsion were building. The vision began to fade.

"My head…it hurts," complained Hank.

"Mine too," Bobby said, holding his temple in his hands. Uni mewled painfully between his knees.

"My apologies, young ones." The Altrusian hung up the mageti. "I have some telepathic abilities and I am afraid I let them get away from me due to my anger."

"I'll say," said Erik, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"O-kay, I guess it's war strategy time." Hank stepped up to Enik. "We are willing to help in your fight, if you'll have us."

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! What makes you think ol' DM sent us here to help out the bug-eyed lizard people?" Eric crossed his arms as means of cementing his stance.

"Eric, you are so dense." Diana leaned against her fighting staff. "Remember what Dungeon Master said. 'If you want to find a way home, you must find the one who is alone among many of his kind.'" She walked over to Enik. "That's Enik. He's the last of his kind since his people descendants have, uh, had some problems."

"That's right!" Presto said. "We are right where we are supposed to be!"

"Oh yeah! And what about the going home part?" said the skeptical Cavalier.

Presto ran over to the stone portal. "This is it! This viewer of his is our way home!"

ACT 5 – THE TEMPLE

In the back of old abandoned Temple that the Marshalls had turned into their residence after they had lost their cliff dwelling in a series of harsh earthquakes, a swirling column of small colored balls slowly appears, and within it a tall, red, glowing being the size of a man materializes.

As it walked to the entrance, it walked by the belongings of the Marshalls like they weren't even there. It only paused to glance down at the small wooded recorder. Then it continued on.

The night before a massive energy vortex had bypassed all of the Land of the Lost's safety barriers depositing a number of determined aggressors. In doing so, a number of other barriers had also been breached. Pylons that had been used to gather information about interesting events had suddenly brought back passengers.

He'd have to correct all this quick before anyone else found out. Or he'd have to due away with the entire Land of the Lost.

**Cast**

Q's TEAM

Admiral Leonard 'Bones' McCoy

Spock

Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Ro Laren

Captain Benjamin Sisko

General Martok

Captain Kathryn Janeway

Kes

Q2's TEAM

Khan Noonien Singh

Mirror Universe Captain James T. Kirk

Lore

Commander Sela

Gul Dukat

Female Shapeshifter

Seska

Alpha Hirogen

SIGMUND AND THE SEA MONSTERS (1973 – 1975)

Sigmund Ooze – (Billy Barty)

Johnny Stuart – (Johnny Whitaker)

Scott Stuart – (Scott Kolden)

Big Daddy

Sweet Mama

Slurp

Burp

LAND OF THE LOST (1974 – 1977)

Park Ranger Rick Marshall – (Spencer Milligan)

Will Marshall – (Wesley Eure)

Holly Marshall – (Kathy Coleman)

Jack Marshall – (Ron Harper)

Cha-Ka – (Philip Paley)

Enik – (Walker Edmiston)

Ta – (Scutter McKay)

Sa –

Zarn –

LOST IN SPACE (1965 – 1968)

Dr. Zachary Smith – (Jonathan Harris)

Will Robinson – (Bill Mumy)

The Robot – (Bob May/Dick Tufeld)

THE MONKEES (1966 – 1968)

Mickey Dolenz (mentioned only)

Peter Tork (mentioned only)

David Jones (mentioned only)

Michael Nesmith (mentioned only)

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS (1983 – 1984)

Hank, the Ranger – (Willie Aames)

Eric, the Cavalier – (Don Most)

Diana, the Acrobat – (Tonia Gayle Smith)

Albert 'Presto', the Magician – (Adam Rich)

Sheila, the Thief – (Katie Leigh)

Bobby, the Barbarian – (Teddy Field III)

Uni

Dungeon Master – (Sidney Miller)

Venger – (Peter Cullen)

Tiamat

AUTHOR's NOTES:

Welcome to my Saturday morning special! I don't have very many Sci-Fi shows I can tap into effectively. But there have been a number of Saturday morning show (cartoon and non-cartoon) that have a science fiction content that I feel I shouldn't ignore, so I will tap into a number of them for this story. Suggestions?

Talk about timing. I've learned that there is a LAND OF THE LOST movie in the works for 2008 and Will Farrell may star in it! I loved the LAND OF THE LOST and hope to find the DVD collection for my kids. I just have to sneak it by my wife. Just kidding. I have a great relationship with my wife.

Sid and Marty Krofft did a number of kid shows through Krofft Productions. LAND OF THE LOST was the most well known about a small family surviving and trying to get home after getting trapped in a large valley that is a universe that curves in on itself. On the show they also got a number of visitors from various times and worlds so I felt it would be great to bring in people from other shows. SIGMUND THE SEAMONSTER was an earlier Krofft Production show and I felt it was unique enough to include. Besides, Sigmund was played by the legendary Billy Barty. I may have to think of a way to include DR. SHRINKER as well since Barty was on that as well. Any thoughts on that?

The Zarn was a character from LAND OF THE LOST that I thought didn't get enough use so I gave him a little cameo to introduce our hunter friends who will have lots of fun in my story. And who can guess who are hunters are?

I included LOST IN SPACE because they are one of the biggest and long lasting kids Sci-Fi shows ever made. Plus, I love the Robot. Before I got married I used to have a collection of famous toy robots displayed around my computer for inspiration as I wrote. I bought the Robot from LOST IN SPACE at the Mall of America in Minnesota.

I included mention of THE MONKEES because I was a big fan of theirs when I was a kid. Huge fan.

Okay. DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS. I debated about this one, but I loved the show and there was never a conclusion as to whether or not the kids ever got how just like we don't know if the Marshalls ever got home.

The tall, red, glowing being comes from the LAND OF THE LOST episode 28: The Magician.

Now remember none of these characters have been signed on by the Doctor, the Master or either of the Q's. They are all stumbling in on this themselves so expect developments.

Any question on any of these shows try looking on the Internet at ANSWERS DOT COM. Your memories will come flooding back if you had any contact with these shows. I showed my wife a picture of the Sleestak and she was grossed out. But then she is 6 months pregnant so that could be here excuse.

Please send me a review. I'm sick with bronchitis at home and will take all the encouragement I can get.


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER 3 – GETTING THE PARTY STARTED**

**ACT 1 – A CONFERENCE AMONG EQUALS**

Deep in the innards of the TARDIS was a specially designed conference room so certain meetings could take place though technically such situations were never supposed to happen so this was the first time it had actually ever been used. The nine occupants of the room were each handling those facts differently.

"We shouldn't be meeting here," said one of the residing figures with a sour note. He was an older looking man with white hair who gave the appearance of being currently very perturbed.

"I disagree. This is the perfect place for this particular group to meet. This room was even designed for it." He was a young looking man wearing a light jacket with orange trim but for some reason had a piece of celery pinned to his jacket in place of a flower.

The first speaker grimaced. "Pardon me if I rephrase my statement," he said patronizingly. "I meant that this particular group should never meet. Any of us. Ever."

"And yet you are here," commented another man. He was slightly smaller and skinnier than his colleagues and he wore a vest covered in red question marks as well as holding an umbrella with a red question mark handle. He also wore a straw hat that the others all seemed to frown upon.

"We are all here because we are all obsessively curious," responded a spry white-haired man wearing a frilled shirt, smoking jacket with an opera cloak. "That does seem to be one of the main traits that has carried over to all of us.

The largest man in the room paced back and forth as if greatly agitated. He wore a garish, multicolored attire that reflected his volatile personality. "Right now I want to know which of us called everybody together despite the fact that the rules state that we are never to communicate."

A bushy haired man hurried into the room as he wrapped a very long multi-colored scarf around his neck. "I thought we agreed that the rules were more or less guidelines to try abiding to. But as for your question, I called you all here." He put down a few bowls and then pulled out a couple paper sacks out of his pockets from which he poured into the bowls. "Jelly babies, gentlemen?" They descended on the bowls while he briskly walked over to the far wall and turned to address his audience. "Now, since I know that you are all wondering why I called you here, I'll make it simple. It's the Master. Due to fortunate circumstances for him, he is amassing an army and is headed here." He turned on a large monitor screen behind him which displayed a place some referred to as The Land of the Lost.

"Oh my stars and garters!" exclaimed the man with the recorder in one hand and a hand full of jelly babies in the other.

As the men in the TARDIS conference room stared at the picture of the Land of the Lost, their innate knowledge informed them of things they would have sworn they had never known.

"The Master is going there?" said the youngest looking man in the room but who was strangely also the oldest of the ten of them. "But it should be practically impossible for him to get there."

"Yes, but he is anyway." The scarfed man grinned at his colleagues. "And I have a way of taking us safely there to stop him."

"Go to a forbidden place and time in order to face an army put together by the Master?" scoffed the first speaker.

"And another adversary called the Borg."

"Would they be anything like the Borg I faced in Sweden in 1568…or was that 1658?" said the brown haired man with curly waved that gave him a Byronesque appearance.

"That's a different Borg entirely. These are more like the Cybermen, but more formidable."

"Fantastic! And how, pray tell, do you propose to stop them?" said a short haired man sporting a plain black leather jacket.

"Ah, by each of us gathering fighters of our own. We can beat the Master at his own game if we stand together." He held out his arm. "Are you with me, Doctors?"

Some were quick to take the scarfed man's hand, but they all agreed and joined in the brief huddle. It was inevitable. They were all time-lords after all. The same time-lord actually, just different incarnations of the same man.

As they returned to their seats, the scarf wearing Doctor rubbed his hands together. "And now that that done, let's discuss a few snags."

**ACT 2 – CLOSE ENCOUNTERS**

"Ecologically, this is amazing!" Will stated.

"It's gross, Will!"

"It's part of the natural order," added Sigmund. Being a creature of the sea he was more used to these sorts of things than Human children appeared to be.

They were watching the two-headed corpse of LuLu be torn apart by Grumpy, a large and evidently very hungry Tyrannosaur. With each bite of flesh the dinosaur took, he dislodged a cloud of buzzing insects that had had a prior stake on LuLu's body. A small swarm of large dragonflies dove around Grumpy's head in order to get to the insect clouds which reminded Will of the movie he had seen when he was younger.

"I bet King Kong would have fit in great here."

"Will, we are fortunate enough that the Land of the Lost can support all the dinosaurs that are here. You really think adding a 20-ton ape to the food chain would be a good idea?"

"I'm just trying to have a conversation, Holly. There's not much else we can do until uncle Jack gets back."

When they had originally heard Grumpy's approach, they automatically realized that he was searching for LuLu's corpse. While it was true that the carnivorous dinosaur liked to make it's own kills, he had no problems scrounging around for a smelly corpse to eat or stealing kills from other predators. Holly, Will and Sigmund had found plenty of time to hike up one of the side trails that went up the rock ridges next to the marsh, duck for cover as Grumpy passed, and then find a good spot to watch both for Grumpy and uncle Jack's return. Holly and Will both found that being the children of a park ranger helped in situations like this.

"Look!" Sigmund said, pointing with a tentacle.

Holly gasped. "Oh no! Where'd they come from?"

Eight people, four of whom looked to be Human, were standing in the open between where Sigmund and the teenagers were hiding and where Grumpy was greedily devouring his food. Fortunately, for the new arrivals, the Tyrannosaur had it's back turned to them.

"They just appeared." Sigmund was flustered. "Like magic!"

"We need to get them out of there!" Will started forward but Sigmund stepped in his way.

"I don't think they are good," said the seaweed sea monster.

"They should still be warned," Will said.

"They are not in an immediate danger. The large lizard is paying them no attention." His sad eyes regarded Will. "But if I am right and they are evil, you will put yourself and your sister in danger by bringing us to their attention"

Will bit his lip. He was sure he was older than Sigmund so he should be calling the shots, but the short green sea creature was right. The new arrivals did seem to emanate an aura of hostility. And he had to keep Holly safe.

Down on the wet sand path, the Alpha Hirogen looked admiringly at Grumpy's muscular body. "A worthy trophy to come back for later."

"Just remember what is our first priorities," Commander Sela chided, as she began scanning the region.

The Alpha Hirogen looked down at the female Human/Romulan hybrid. "I am an Alpha Hirogen! I need no reminders of priorities! Especially from the likes of you!"

Nearby, Lore was smirking as he took a series of readings with his tricorder. "Interesting. This land has no magnetic field. And I'm receiving an unusual echo effect when I try to scan beyond this valley. By the way, we need to establish a temporary chain of command while here. We need a leader to cut through all the arguments."

"That would be me!" Khan Noonien Singh and the Mirror Universe Captain James T. Kirk said at the same time. They each scowled at each other, insisting the other back down.

"I don't think our leader should be a Human," Gul Dukat advised.

"I agree," said the female Shapeshifter.

"Or a Changeling," added Dukat. "You have shown that you could care less if a '_solid_' were to die. I think that would hamper your leadership abilities with this particular group of solids," he explained to her stony look.

If she was offended by the shut out for leadership, she chose not to show it except to fold her arms and turn to examine the landscape.

"So is there any of us we can agree to have as leader?" Seska queried, obviously amused by the situation.

"Wait, we…have another potential problem," said the Alpha Hirogen as he turned his head to sniff the air. He raised his staff.

"I have them now," Lore said, with a glance at his tricorder. "Everyone should prepare themselves." He reached down for his phaser rifle. "We are about to be-" Just then he noticed a three dots of a laser beam sighting a triangle on his chest. He moved almost as the bright blue plasma beam hit him in the arm, removing the limb from his body along with the weapon it held.

Ducking a swift moving disc that sliced through a large tree limb behind him, the Alpha Hirogen turned and moved to one of the rocky sidewalls of the marsh.

Khan and Kirk knuckled down side by side near a large boulder as they tried to determine where the attacks were coming from so they could retaliate in kind.

A net-missile caught the female Changeling and hurled her back against the rock wall where it embedded itself and began constricting itself. As the net began intruding into her body space, the Changeling managed a smile. "Amusing," she murmured. Then she liquefied herself in order to step out of the lethal trap. Noting the laser fire she took on a more elongated snake-like form and moved among the rocks for cover. She needed a target before she could attack and she wouldn't risk herself needlessly. That's what solids were for.

Gul Dukat dove to the side instinctively, just missing a blast that tore up the ground where he had been standing. He ran back for cover followed by Seska who was firing wildly into the rocks. They both screeched to a halt when they realized that Grumpy's formidable bulk impeded their path.

The T-Rex, startled by the sudden uproar, had turned to observe the commotion. And now he had two live morsels charging toward him. Being a creature of opportunity, Grumpy lunged at the two Cardassians. Dukat turned and dove into the shallow water for escape, not trusting his phaser to stop the bulk of the charging monster with all the teeth and scales.

Seska, however, froze momentarily before bringing her phaser up to fire. At the last moment she was snatched away from the jaws of certain death by an unseen form. She was tossed down on the ground a couple of hundred yards away with a couple broken ribs and the breath knocked out of her. As she managed to open her eyes, she saw an eight-foot tall muscular alien decloak in front of her. He wore a face mask that had a long tube-like hairs tied back behind him. "…a worthy trophy…," she heard a recording of the Alpha Hirogen say. It was the last thing that Seska saw or heard before the Yautja hunter took her head and phaser with it's wrist blades.

Grumpy, confused by everything, walked away for the familiarity of the jungle. He would return later when things mellowed. Kirk and Khan held still as the large predatory dinosaur passed them, but they kept their eyes peeled for their attackers.

"If I could only see them," muttered Kirk.

"I can see them just fine," growled Lore. He reached over with his left arm and took the phaser rifle that his dismembered right limb. With speed that belied his injured condition, the android aimed at a space in the air fifteen feet away and fired.

The phaser fire temporarily disrupted the personal cloak field around the large alien while severing it's arm at the shoulder. Florescent green blood splattered on the ground, leaving a trail as the once again unseen figure stumbled away.

"A limb for a limb!" spat Lore as he tried to right himself for another shot. Unfortunately, his servos were still being repaired internally and all he could do was fume as he lay there.

Khan Noonien Singh's eyes darted everywhere. "Look for footprints, bending grass, sagging tree limbs, shadows. Anything that their cloaking fields can't cover."

"You're stating the obvious, Khan! I know what to look for!" said an indignant Kirk, though he did scan the trees nearest him just as something seemed to move. But it had been too fast.

Off to the side of the rocky edges of the valley, the two teenagers and Sigmund stared in horror at the events that were transpiring below them.

"What's attacking them?" Holly was shocked and biting her knuckles.

"I don't know." Will racked his brains. "The Zarn is out this way but I don't think he's capable of something like this. Must be something new in the Land of the Lost."

Sigmund gasped. "One of them is coming!"

"What? How can you tell! I don't see anything!"

Sigmund pushed them back from the edge. "I've lived most of my life underwater. I see things differently than you do." He pointed to a small crevice. "Crawl in quick!"

Will seemed about to refuse but Holly tugged on his sleeve. "If Sigmund lies in front of it we'll be covered," she said.

Will nodded and they crowed in close. Sigmund, with years of practice, arranged his seaweed body in such a way that it covered the opening effectively just as something came to investigate.

Something crunched underfoot as someone or something heavy walked out where they had been just a few moments before. Will and Holly held their breath.

There was a startled yelp as two large bodies collided and were heard rolling down to the sandy path.

The Alpha Hirogen had found his prey and they grappled down the rocks, rolled past Kirk and Khan and into the marshy water. The cloaking field seemed to crackle in the liquid and dissipate revealing a muscular form with bits of body armor and a mesh jumpsuit that seemed to steam slightly, indicating that it was either tied into the cloaking mechanism or part of a personal heating apparatus.

The alien attacker lashed out with wrist blades cutting the Hirogen slightly in the chest, but the larger Alpha leader had his arm and twisted. The attacker bent as he kicked catching the Hirogen in the knee. Sela moved to get a shot but a plasma explosion behind her showered her with debris that effectively knocked her down. A shower of plasma explosions separated the combative aliens and the attacker tuned and disappeared. Captain Kirk fired repeated in the direction it had disappeared but as far as he could tell he had hit nothing.

"Now that is what I call a close encounter," said Khan, as he scanned the rocks. "Do you detect anything else, Lore?"

Lore had already grabbed his tricorder and was scanning the area again. "They are retreating. There appear to have been four of them. The one I shot may be critically wounded." He attempted to sit up again but was only partially successful. "I am conducting a self-diagnostic on myself, but I should be ready to travel in about ten minutes. I'll have to see if I can salvage my arm later."

Dripping wet, Gul Dukat walked over and sat down hard near the others. "Seska's dead. It…did things to her."

"It took trophies to remember the hunt," explained the Alpha Hirogen.

Dukat stared at him. "How do you know that?"

"Because that is exactly what my people would have done in their place. Most of you will probably die in our next encounter with them."

"Can you get us by them?" Sela asked, as she pulled weeds and wet sand out of her hair.

He regarded them. "Some of you are very clumsy. It would be difficult at best."

"Ah, but think of it this way," said the female Shapeshifter who took on a humanoid form again. "Because of all the extra complications, the trophies you collect off of these…predators…will be that much more valuable to you."

The Alpha Hirogen stared at her for a moment. And then he laughed long and hard. "You must be a diplomat where you come from!"

She nodded. "Something along those lines."

The sound of pebbles falling had them all on instant alert. They paused when they saw that it was a young blond girl in pig-tails wearing a flannel shirt, a tall dark-haired teenage boy that seemed to want to stop her, and a small roly-poly vegetable creature coming toward them with their hands up.

"Can we help?" said Holly. "You have wounded."

Khan smiled. "I think it is time I used my diplomatic skills here. Perhaps we can learn something from them."

Though the others didn't say so, they agreed and Khan Noonien Singh went to meet Holly, Will and Sigmund.

**ACT 3 – THE MASTER'S ARMY**

The Master watched carefully as the 'people' (he used that term loosely) he had conscripted for this venture filed out of his TARDIS. Fortunately, his TARDIS was equipped to enlarge its doorway or there would have been no way some of these beings could have ever entered, let alone leave, his TARDIS.

They were a motley crew of wanna-be conquerors. They recognized that in each other and it made them distrust each other all the more. But what he was offering them was more than they could ever hope to achieve on their own. He knew they had thoughts of betraying him. That was to be expected. If he had dared to take more time, he would have done a more thorough job of who he had selected as he scoured the areas of the multiverse Q2 had let him access.

As the last of them filed out and lined up according to the group that they came with, the Master started to tsk out loud. He turned to the large white formidable robot that was in charge of the Decepticons. "Megatron, everyone comes out to play. No one is to be left inside to snoop through my secrets."

The large robot stared down at the small fleshy humanoid before nodding to the blue and white robot next to him. Soundwave turned to the open door of the Master's TARDIS and emitted a barely registerable tone for the Human ear, though a few of the more bestial troop members whined or howled.

From the entrance of the time machine came Soundwave's companions Ravage, Buzzsaw and Rumble, who were robot versions of a jaguar, a condor and a short man. The first two hurried to Soundwave and transformed into their storage components that Soundwave stored in his chest. Rumble didn't bother with that and just strutted over to join his fellow Decepticons.

"Trust seems to be an issue for you," chuckled the Cobra Commander to the Master.

"Not really," responded the Master. "I trust no one; therefore I know where I stand with everyone."

"What is this structure?" Krang inquired. Krang's body was a glob of proto-matter with eyes, a mouth and a few feeble pink tentacles which was the result of some horrific accident. Currently he was in a yellow Human-shaped exo-suit that housed him in its chest area. He stood next to a metallic obelisk-shaped booth. "My instruments are not able to get any information from it. Not even surface temperature."

"You should avoid the pylons," informed the Master. "The technology inside may appear simplistic but it is actually beyond your capabilities.

"You might be surprised at just how advanced some of us are," commented Lex Luthor, who stood at the forefront of the Legion of Doom next to the green-skin android, Brainiac.

The evil time-lord shook his head. "No. I made sure that none of you could surpass me. That is why I am the Master."

"You can't possibly believe that any of us are going to call you that, do you?" Brak said, as he trimmed his nails with a thin, sharp knife. Beside him his brother Sisto chuckled quietly.

"Are you saying you would have rather I had left you to rot on that prison planet Space Ghost had left you and your friends jailed?"

Brak growled, but said nothing more.

"This is supposed to be a mutually beneficial partnership," Skeletor growled.

Next to him a small tank-like mechanical casing shaped like a pepperpot swiveled its plunger-like gun-stalk erratically. "THE DA-LEKS WILL NOT SERVE! THE DA-LEKS WILL NOT SERVE!" It's voice was a rasping staccato that caused some of those around to wince painfully.

The Master grinned. He needed an example for the others, and no one liked the xenophobic alien. He had known where the Dalek had been floating alone in space for over a hundred years. Behind the mutant cyborg were five Cybermen that he had rescued from a spaceship that had been marooned on a small planetoid for an even longer period of time. He had just waited for the perfect opportunity to go back in time and save them for his purposes. "You are alone, Dalek. You will serve me or suffer a worse fate than abandonment in the vacuum of space for eternity."

The predictable Dalek turned its plunger gun-stalk at the time-lord. "EX-TER-MIN-ATE! EX-TER-MIN-ATE! EX-TER-MIN-ATE!"

No one else did anything but watch as the strange creature in the overlarge pepperpot container kept threatening the ever grinning Master. "There is something you should know, Dalek. There is something you should all know. By joining me here at this location I have made it so that none of you can harm me. You will do my bidding if you want to be free of this place. And if I am happy with your services when this is all over, I will need loyal people to rules worlds for me. Perhaps several worlds. And I don't care at what position they start at here as long as they are smart enough to obey me."

"This is not what I signed on for," said an armored figure.

The Master smiled, this being one of the few present that he could actually respect for his capabilities. "And I don't expect to hold you to the same rules, Boba Fett. My original deal stands with you and your fellow bounty hunters. I'll just be paying you more." He knew that the best way to get the bounty hunters to work most effectively for him was to give them what they wanted all along. Freedom and more money.

The reptilian Trandoshan disliked his competition showing more bravery in talking to the evil time-lord, so he stepped forward. "What is our prey?" asked Bossk, who foolishly considered himself to be practically a prince among the bounty hunters.

The Master smiled. The conversation was deviating a little but it would let certain truths sink into the others of his conscripted force. He had worked this out with Q2 ahead of time. "Other groups will be arriving to stop us. The first group will be a party of eight people, some of whom will be sporting uniforms similar to this." He pulled out a couple of Starfleet uniforms and tossed them to the bounty hunters who caught them. "Your mission is to kill them…or capture, if you don't have the stomach for killing."

The bounty hunting droids, IG-88 and 4-LOM, scanned the uniforms from where they stood, but Dengar and Zuckuss took more time since there were a number of different period uniforms present.

The Master continued his instructions. "Since they will be brought in blind, not knowing where the geography or where their target, the Borg, are, most likely they will be placed near the center of this microverse, which I believe is just a few miles that way."

The bounty hunters moved off to see if they could agree on a strategy and the Master went to work on his troops again. Megatron was smugly ready for him. "The Decepticons will not be participating in your little games," informed the robotic leader.

"You cannot defeat me. You cannot even lift a cylinoid to harm me."

Megatron grinned down at him with all the Decepticons chortling at what they thought was the Master's mistake. "I don't have to defeat you. I just have to choose to not fight for you. And as long as you hold this…geis…over us, the Decepticons will abide our time here."

"I thought you would be the one to think of a pathetic passive-aggressive stance. Which is why I made sure that your second-in-command, Starscream, was brought along to replace you."

"What?" Starscream cried. "I don't know what he's talking about, Megatron," he began, ready to plead for his existence.

"This is what I'm talking about!" howled the Master. He swung up a small device from his inner cloak. It was one of his favorite devices, the Tissue Compression Eliminator, which he had modified in order to deal with this oversized pompous tin can leader. Sonic waves of energy bent the light around Megatron as he tried to break free of their hold. The Decepticons had found that the Master had been true to his word as they were unable to go to their leader's defense. Howling commenced among the ranks as certain animalistic warriors like Beast Man, Panthor, Bebop, Rocksteady, Brak, and Sisto rolled on the ground holding their ears. Wrenching metallic sounds were added to the barrage of sound as Megatron's metal frame began folding in on itself. For two minutes his frame fought the sonic weapon but in the end his form lay in an eight foot crumpled heap that in no way represented the streamlined robotic form that had previously stood there.

The Master stared with satisfaction at the remains of Megatron for a few moments before turning to Starscream. "Now you will lead the Decepticons for me."

"Uh, yes. All right." It was all Starscream could think to say. But that was not enough for the Master.

"Yes, what?" He glared darkly and forebodingly at the newly appointed Decepticon leader.

Starscream searched desperately through his memory banks for the correct reply. "Um, yes…, master?"

"Very good." He waved him away dismissively and turned to the others. The events had not sat well with them, but they were survivors. And they wanted to rule. Well, they could rule under him. "Remember, my fighters. I am the Master, and you will obey me."

**AUTHOR'S NOTES**

_How could I resist using all ten incarnations of the Doctors? It was just there waiting to be done. Anybody see that coming? I had it planed for a while now._

_By the by, Alpha Hirogen is more or less a title for the lead Hirogen of that particular pack. All others in that pack have to submit to the Alpha Hirogen or else. It's also probably why the Hirogen are spread out all over because you can't get too many of them together without someone trying to be boss._

_Some people may like to point out that the Predators or __Yautja__ usually trail their prey for a while before going for the kill and that appears to be correct. But here they were detected early and the potential prey went for their weapons. That's my story and I'm sticking to it._

_I let Seska die early because I didn't know her character very well. I've only seen part of an episode she was in so unfortunately she was cannon fodder from the get go. Sorry Seska fans._

_I used a lot of cartoon villains for a reason. Do you know how hard it is to come up with a bunch of bad sci-fi villains that are connected to each other? The cartoons were the way to go. Plus, they bring a lot of power to play. Should be fun._

_And the Master? Well, he has plans that even Q2 don't know about. But the Doctor can guess which is why he's got all his incarnations getting prepared to fight. How's this for a good beginning to the end of a series?_

**DOCTOR WHO (1963 – 1989, 2005 - PRESENT)**

The First Doctor – (William Hartnell)

The Second Doctor – (Patrick Troughton)

The Third Doctor – (Jon Pertwee)

The Fourth Doctor – (Tom Baker)

The Fifth Doctor – (Peter Davison)

The Sixth Doctor – (Colin Baker)

The Seventh Doctor – (Sylvester McCoy)

The Eighth Doctor – (Paul McGann)

The Ninth Doctor – (Christopher Eccleston)

The Tenth Doctor – (David Tennant)

The Master – (?)

**MASTER'S VILLAIN ARMY**

Skelator and co. 11

Legion of Doom 13

Space Ghost villains 6

Star Wars bounty hunters 6

Decepticons 20

TMNT villains 5 + 30 foot soldiers

Cobra Commander 15 + 40

Dalek 1

Cybermen 5

**STAR WARS: EPISODE V - THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980)**

Boba Fett

Bossk

Dengar

IG-88

Zuckuss

4-LOM

**G.I. JOE (1985 – 1986)**

Cobra Commander

Baroness

Destro

Dr. Mindbender

Major Bludd

Storm Shadow

Tomax

Xamot

Zartan

40 mercenary soldiers

**TRANSFORMERS (1984 – 1987)**

Megatron

Blitzwing

Bonecrusher

Buzzsaw

Frenzy

Hook

Laserbeak

Long Haul

Mixmaster

Ravage

Reflector

Rumble

Scavenger

Scrapper

Skywarp

Soundwave

Starscream

Thundercracker

**CHALLENGE OF THE SUPER-FRIENDS (1978)**

Bizarro

Black Manta

Brainiac

Captain Cold

Cheetah

Giganta

Gorilla Grodd

Lex Luthor

Riddler

Scarecrow

Sinestro

Solomon Grundy

Toyman

**TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (1987 – 1996)**

Shredder

Bebop

General Traag

Krang

Rocksteady

30 members of the Foot Clan

**HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE (1983 – 1985)**

Skeletor

Beast Man

Evil-Lyn

Jitsu

Mer-Man

Panthor

Spikor

Trap-Jaw

Tri-Klops

Two-Bad

Whiplash

**SPACE GHOST (1966 – 1968)**

Brago

Brak

The Commandor

The Cougar

Creature King

Cubus

Cyclo

Dr. Nightmare

The Evil Collector

Feron

Forvalokka

Glasstor

Lokar

Lurker

Mettalus

Moltar

One-Eye

Pirahnor

The Remora

The Sandman

The Schemer

Sisto

The Sorcerer

Spider Woman a.k.a. Black Widow

Tansut

The Toyman

Uglor

The Wizard

Zeron

Zorak

Zorket


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4 – BEST LAID PLANS**

**ACT 1 – THE BORG STRIKE BACK**

Jack Marshall lay flat as he could on the hard rock floor. The tunnel he had followed had lead to a small cliff with a trail along the left edge that led to an earthen floor that was about seven feet below him. He was peering into a large semi-lit cavern that was almost the size of a basketball court, but from what he could see there was no fun and games going on down there. It looked more like a H.P. Lovecraft version of the Frankenstein story.

In the area of the cavern various individuals moved with no auditory form of communication in synch with each other. Over one eye each individual seemed to have a red laser beam that seemed to stab out into the soft mist that rolled into the cavern from the nearby marshes. Humans that appeared to be wearing high-tech gizmos and had tubes sticking out of their necks and arms moved around tables removing body parts and attaching various technological oddities to Steestak. It was just too horrific to be real. And yet it was.

He was glad for about the seventieth time that he had not taken Will or Holly with him to look in these tunnels. As it was he was going to have nightmares about this for a long time. As near as he could rationalize what was happening before him, the Human cyborgs were trying to process the Sleestak into cyborgs like them. But why?

He'd seen them amputate the left arm of a Sleestak and replace it with a longer prosthetic device that looked like it might serve as a weapon of some sort. On another Sleestak, one of the large insectoid eyes was removed and replaced with a cap that had a much smaller red laser coming from it.

He was trying to count how many there were when a commotion seemed to break out on the far side of the cavern. One of the pale cyborg people was thrown back as a small group of people ran towards where he was.

"They got Bionic-1 and IQ!" protested a young teenage girl with short blonde hair. She and some of those with her had on some type of orange uniform that made Jack think they were sports affiliated. When she fired off a sonic blast from her shoulders he began to think they were something else all together.

"We're outnumbered and underpowered, Rock-1! We regroup and come back!" said an older woman.

"The Power Rangers are right behind you, Mother-1!" said a young man in a blue brightly colored spandex suit that had a helmet with an opaque visor.

"FLUFFI, clear the way!" shouted one of the orange and white uniformed boys who was using a baseball bat to bash away one of the converted Sleestak cyborgs. "My electromagnetic blasts aren't affecting them anymore!"

FLUFFI turned out to be a large robot ape that had a blue face and a brown body. It plowed forward, battering aside the slow moving cyborgs. Finally, one of the cyborgs used its prosthetic appendage to shoot some type of energy at the base of the robot ape that caused it to drop like a puppet with its strings cut.

A young woman covered in pink spandex leaped in front of the fallen FLUFFI and shot with a laser gun, but to no effect. A small force shield came into place over the area of the cyborg that she would have hit.

"Don't shoot! You've already used your lasers! The Borg have adapted to that type of weapon!" shouted a man hurrying behind them. He had an umbrella with a handle that was shaped as a question mark that he used to trip a cyborg that reached out at him.

Behind them the man in red spandex had been shot as he was attempting to fight with his sword. One of the orange uniformed boys rushed to help but was stabbed by small wire-like tubules that leapt out of the crab clawed hands of one of the processed Sleestak.

"Red Ranger and Karate-1 are down!" cried Mother-1. "I need-" Stunned, Mother-1 fell to unconsciousness and her daughter raced to her side. "Sport-1! I need cover!"

"Professor! We have to go!" shouted a young brown haired woman in an oversized black jacket.

"The question is how, Ace!"

She grinned and held up a canister labeled Nitro-9 that she had pulled out of her backpack. Before he could protest she hurled it back the way they had come.

"Everybody down!"

Everyone was knocked off their feet by the explosion. As they got to their feet, Jack waved them toward him. "Hurry!" he shouted. "There's an exit over here!"

They came but the Borg rose to stop them. The Yellow Ranger fell first than Sport-1, followed by Rock-1.

"We're losing everyone!" Ace shouted.

"It's my own fault," said the Doctor as he helped Ace climb up to Jack. "I shouldn't have come and scouted the area before the others got here." He looked back to see many of the drones injecting nano-probes into the Power Ranger and Bionic Six teams.

Jack reached down and practically dragged the small time-lord up by the scruff of his neck. No one else had made it and they hurried away down the tunnel without speaking. There would be time enough for that later. If there was a later.

**ACT 2 – AND ALONG CAME …**

The furry little hominid hurried out of the old temple that the Marshalls had turned into their residence deeply agitated. The Marshalls were no where to be found. Even worse, the back door to the second chamber was open and the lights on the crystal display console, which Jack Marshall believed was connected to all of the pylons, was blinking on and off in an almost hostile manner.

Outside, he found his new friend, Will Robinson, staring up in the afternoon sky with Dr. Smith and the Robot.

"It shouldn't be astronomically possible for a satellite to move that fast around a planet," comment Will.

"It isn't possible," answered the Robot.

"Sat-ell-ite?" the young Paku asked.

Will pointed at one of the moons that that was racing across the heavens. "That moon. A moon is also called a satellite."

"Speedy!" Cha-Ka grinned and pointed.

Dr. Smith nodded in agreement. "Yes, it does appear to be rather fast."

"Holly name Speedy. Pakuni call iram." He grinned at the sharing of information. As for the small moon, it quickly disappeared over the horizon.

"A very aptly named moon," said Dr. Smith, not caring to learn another language. "Now where are these marshals? This land is very dangerous and-" He paused to watch a pterodactyl fly overhead with something dead and hairy in its claws. "Make that extremely dangerous. And we need their protection."

Cha-Ka looked downcast. He hadn't wanted to let down his new friends. "Marshalls not here."

"Not here? No one's here? Not even a secretary to man the post or relay messages?"

"Dr. Smith, look at this!" During Cha-Ka's discussion with Dr. Smith, Will had glanced inside the old temple. He had found an old leather wallet and had taken out a driver's license.

Dr. Smith snapped it out of the young lad's hands and gave the ID a hard look. He gasped in realization. "These people aren't Marshals or any other type of law enforcement. Their last name is Marshalls!" He turned and scowled at the juvenile Paku. "You misrepresented them!"

Cha-Ka's feelings were hurt. He had no idea what the older man was indicating, but he knew from the tone from his experiences with Ta and Sa that he was most likely being unfairly blamed for something.

"Your conclusions were your own mistake," defended the Robot.

"Mind your own facts, you simpering steel-jacketed tape player!" growled Dr. Smith.

The Robot paused as if unsure of something. Then it suddenly flailed it's arms in alarm. "Danger! Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!"

Down the path that they had come from they could just see the head of a large low ground dinosaur with a large back fin protruding into the air that had the appearance of a sail.

"Opi!" cried Cha-Ka. And he began pulling Will toward the doorway of the Marshall's dwelling in the old temple. "Torchy ota! Torchy ota!"

"Wow! It looks like it could be a Dimetrodon which lived during the last period of the Paleozoic Era back on Earth. That was about 280 to 260 million years ago."

"Oh dear. Perhaps we should discuss this inside," said Dr. Smith as he began backing up into the stone temple.

"We'll be safe inside, right, Cha-Ka?" asked Will.

"Ota!" exclaimed the small Paku. He made deep breathing noises and gestures, but he couldn't convey his thought. He ran to the old fire pit that the Marshall's had. "Ota!"

"Fire?" said Will. "You want us to use fire to drive off the dinosaur?"

Cha-Ka shook his head. "Ota fire! Torchy breathe fire!"

Dr. Smith raised a skeptical eyebrow. "A fire-breathing dragon?"

Just then a blast of flames erupted from the Dimetrodon's mouth that went out twenty-five feet.

The three of them ran into the temple and huddled behind it's stone door.

"Hello! Anyone home?"

Dr. Smith and Will stared in disbelief at each other. "A talking fire-breathing dragon?" they both said.

Will cracked open the door but couldn't see anything. "Robot, is the Dimetrodon talking?"

"No," came the answer from outside. "It is the rider on the fire-breathing Dimetrodon's neck that is talking," said the Robot.

"I hadn't seen anyone riding the beast," said Dr. Smith.

"That is because you were too busy running away," answered the Robot.

"Why you, how dare you accuse me of-"

"Dr. Smith, shouldn't we see who is out there?" said Will, ever the peacemaker.

Considering himself a very sensible man, Dr. Zachary Smith raised himself to his full height, brushed off each shoulder, followed by the cuffs of his sleeves. "You are right, William. One of us must go out there and talk to this dinosaur rider. And who better than the member of our party that is already outside."

"Very well," said the Robot with a resigned tone. "But in doing so I show more courage in my cogs than you have even shown in your entire life."

"Oh! You-" Dr. Smith hit his hand on the stone door in anger, then put it to his mouth because of the pain. "I hope you get melted down to a slag heap!"

"I hope he doesn't get melted down," said Will. "If he does, then we've lost our only source of protection."

"Oh my," said the older man. "I hadn't thought of that." He began wringing his hands in the anticipation of danger as he paced. "And there are all those horrible dinosaurs out there, too. How will we ever get out of here?"

Will and Cha-Ka weren't paying his ranting any mind as they had opened the door slightly so that they could try see how the Robot was fairing. Seeing that the Robot was unharmed, they slowly walked forward right behind the Robot.

Torchy, the Dimetrodon, didn't react to their presence and it seemed to be due to the feet of the short legged rider rubbing roughly against the fire-breathing animal's neck, which appeared to be causing Torchy to almost purr with his tongue hanging half out of his mouth.

"The key is to stimulate these pressure spots on his neck," the rider said, answering the unasked question. "As long as I keep moving my feet like this he's as docile as a baby." He looked at Will peeking around the Robot. "You're Human, right?"

"Um, I am, yes. I'm Will," Will responded. "And Cha-Ka is… Cha-Ka, what are you?"

"Cha-Ka Pakuni." The young Paku was terrified, but he was determined to show the same bravery his new friend displayed.

"Greetings, Cha-Ka, Will and very strange looking robot dude. I am Gordon Shumway from Melmac. You can call me Alf." Alf appeared to be about three feet tall and covered in orange fur which was readily apparent since he wore no clothes. He had a large rippled snout that protruded out with his lower jaw. His eyes were high on his head as were his ears which were the tallest part of him. He also appeared to only have four fingers on each hand.

"Why Alf?"

"It's short for 'Alien Life Form'. It's what my adopted Earth family called me." He leaned forward on the large reptile's neck. "And speaking of Earth, are we still on that planet?"

"No," spoke the Robot.

"Ye gods! It speaks!"

"Of course I speak," responded the Robot, slightly agitated by the little alien.

"Well, then tell me where I am?"

"I can not do that."

"Why? Is it a government secret? I've learned a lot of them before I snuck out of Area 51. Never heard reference of this place though."

"I can not do it because I do not know where we are."

"Oh." The Melmacian thumped his fingers on the side of Torchy's neck causing the Dimetrodon to twitch slightly. Will and Cha-Ka drew in a gasp and prepared to dive to cover if necessary. "Well, that's too bad. It's always nice to know where you are even if that's not where you want to be, right boys?"

Will and Cha-Ka looked at each other in confusion. "Cha-Ka is right here," said the young Paku.

"Ha! Ha! You're right. Now, I was wondering if you boys could help me with a little problem."

"What kind of problem?" said Dr. Smith, sounding as snidely as he could as he walked over to the others.

"Leg cramps. I can't keep up this neck massage going much longer. But when I stop he's going to get all hot and bothered again."

Dr. Smith swallowed. "Hot…and bothered?"

"Yeah," continued Alf. "And if I wasn't up on his neck, even I'd be a toasted fur ball."

"…toasted?..."

"Anyway, I need a way to get away to distract this guy so I can get away."

The young Paku suddenly became very excited. "Cha-Ka know! Torchy eat rocks! Cha-Ka get rocks!"

They watched as Cha-Ka ran into the old stone temple.

"The kid doesn't have rocks in the head, does he?" asked the Melmacian.

Will shook his head. "We're still working on the language barrier, but he seems pretty smart."

"So, I take it the Torchy he was referring to is the oversized lizard I've been using as a steed for the last five or six hours."

Will nodded. "That's what Cha-Ka calls him. He seemed really surprised that you were able to control him."

"Surprised me, too. I was scampering over some cliff edges trying to get away from this saber-toothed tiger, which was very ironic and scary by the way, and I fell off onto this guy. From then on it was learn as I go."

Cha-Ka came out of the stone dwelling dragging a vine net filled with black rocks.

"It's coal!" said Will.

"Rocks," corrected Cha-Ka. "Fire rocks."

"Let's hurry, guys. My legs are on there last legs."

"Robot, stand over here," directed Will. "If it looks like things are going to go bad, then zap Torchy." He turned to Alf. "Okay, can you direct him over by those low branches. Cha-Ka and I will leave a trail of coal leading away. When I call out you scramble up into that tree. Does that sound go to you?"

"Hey, it's better than anything I've come up with in the last couple of hours," he said. "What have he got to lose?" He paused, thinking about that very fact. "Never mind. Let's do it anyway."

**ACT 3 – TO FEED A HUNGRY GOD**

Hank flexed his fingers, letting himself feel the pull of the mystic energy string of the magic bow he held. "Enik, we are not going to let you sacrifice these people."

Enik waved the accusation away with a clawed hand. "I am not sacrificing them! My people are! And justifiably so!" He may not have liked many of the degenerative customs his people's descendants had taken on, but he tried to respect them. Since he had traveled about ten thousand years into the past by accident and discovered his once great people, the Altrusians, had been reduced to barbarism, and finally accepting the fact that he may never get back to his time to ensure that whatever calamity befalls his people never happens, he had worked hard to establish himself as a guiding force with them to try restore them or at least get them back on the right path for reconstructing his peoples society. "Those two were trespassing!"

"Technically, so were we when we arrived in your tunnels."

"Hank! Speed it up, buddy!" Eric, the Cavalier, stood at Hank's back using his shield to create a mystical barrier to deflect the crossbow bolts of the Sleestak. Though the shield he created was practically unbreakable, it did require some mental strain to keep erected.

"These trespassers committed vandalism!" accused Enik. "They entered into the Library of Skulls and destroyed two of the skulls."

Hank bit his lip. He didn't understand a lot of different cultures customs and laws, but he tried to respect them as much as he could. Still, he wasn't going to let two lives be killed over something like this. "These are living people; not the dead and departed!"

"Unlike your kind, we can communicate with the dead!" Enik explained angrily. "They were my people's repository of knowledge for thousands of years! But now two are forever lost to us!"

"It was an accident!" cried out one of the living sacrifices. There were two of them. One appeared to be a monochrome colored young female while the other was, well, humanoid, but only about two feet tall. He had a leathery skin with two feathers that appeared over each eye, possibly something similar to an eyebrow. But while his appearance was alien, he didn't seem dangerous. They were tied together in a rope net hung over a misty pit where unearthly growls could be here emanating.

Three Sleestak held the rope which extended over a beam above the pit where the two prisoners squirmed as they dangled. In unspoken agreement, the three Sleestak let go of the rope.

"Hank!" Diana was in motion immediately. She leapt over the large pit. Her magical wooden staff extended well over the length of both stone sides of the pit giving her something to stand on while she grabbed the very end of the rope before it slipped over beam. There was a reason that she was named the Acrobat. "I need a hand here!"

While the other kids hurried over to catch the end of the rope, Hank fired an energy arrow at the three Sleestak in their way. Instead of hitting the Sleestak, the arrow wrapped around them effectively tying them together. "Enik! It doesn't have to be like this!"

"While the Sleestak god is angry, my people will fight to placate him!" retorted Enik.

"Pull!" Sheila, Bobby and Presto struggled to pull up two in the net while Diana walked skillfully off the open pit so that she could give them assistance.

Meanwhile, Eric had moved over to provide better cover as well as pull with one of his arms. "Man, the things I do for this team."

"Shut up and pull, Eric!" snapped Bobby.

Slowly the net came up, but what concerned everyone was that with the foggy mist coming from down below they couldn't see how far the strangers had fallen below or for that matter how close they were to the creature down below.

"Pull!" cried out the male voice. "It's almost got me!"

The kids pulled and managed to raise it a few feet when the growling took on a high pitched tone that seemed to puzzle the unseen creature as much as everyone else.

Enik went to the edge of the pit and looked down with concern.

The kids paused in their pulling long enough for Presto to call down to the captives. "Uh, what's going on down there? Is everybody alright?"

"Rygel farted!" came a high-pitched squeaky voice that sounded very pissed. "He farts helium! Concentrated helium! The beast was right below when Rygel went off!"

"It only happens when I'm frightened," said a different high-pitched voice.

Bobby snickered. And then the other kids did, too, though they managed to keep hold of the rope.

"Get us out of here!" screamed the two voices in unison with lots of high squeaks.

Enik seemed bewildered as to how to proceed. The Human youths with their powerful weapons had agreed to aid him against a new enemy that was attacking his people, but they stubbornly refused to begin when they saw the Sleestak about to deal with these vandals.

"Enik, the longer we deal with this situation the more people you lose to those invaders you were telling us about." Hank lowered his bow to his side as a gesture of peace.

From down below, the lone Altrusian could hear the slow breathing of the Sleestak god. "He sleeps. Perhaps from the helium." Enik seemed to resign himself. "Very well, I will talk to my people. I believe I can convince them to spare these two but only if they go and fight by your side. If they are found anywhere else in the tunnels without you, they will be killed and brought back to feed the god of the Sleestaks."

Hank nodded in agreement, then he went to help the others bring up the net and it's prisoners.

There had been little progress in raising the two prisoners as Bobby, Presto and Eric would double over in giggles whenever one of the high-pitched voices called up from the pit. Finally, with Hank's help, they were able to bring it all the way up and over onto the stone floor.

The smaller one managed to disengage himself from the net faster than his comrade. "Oh my, I am so glad to be free of that accursed net. Those scaly fiends have no right to handle someone of my majesty!"

"Uh, who are you exactly?" asked Presto.

The short creature stood to his full height. "I am Dominar Rygel XVI, the ruler of Hynerian Empire with more that six hundred billion subjects."

"Currently deposed ruler you mean," called out his light grey female companion. She threw off the last of the net and then took the arm of the nearest person to help her up.

That proved to be Eric who was very taken with the idea of helping her. He stared in bewilderment at the alien beauty. "…hi…"

"Thanks," she said. She took a few steps away from the sacrificial pit and shivered briefly. Eric followed. "I'm Chiana and I am very glad you came this way. Not everybody would be willing to stop a sacrifice of sentients."

Hank shrugged. "It's what we do." He introduced himself and the others. When Eric's introduction came Hank was dumbfounded when the cavalier took her hand and kissed it.

"So how did you end up here?" Sheila asked, hoping to by pass that unusual event.

"It was Rygel's fault, of course."

"How dare you blame me!" hollered the Hynerian. "How could I possible foresee the events that brought us here?"

"Anyway," she continued, while he made an indignant sound. "The inhabitants of Ork seemed benign enough so we went down to gather supplies while our ship was in orbit."

"You send me in orbit," Eric said, through half closed eyes. Then they snapped open. "What? You're an alien?"

Chiana raised an eyebrow. "Well, I'm certainly not a Sebacean like you."

It was Eric's turn to raise an eyebrow. "What's a Sebacean?"

Chiana was thunderstruck. "I thought it was your species, but I guess I was wrong."

Diana shook her head. "That's okay. We're from Earth."

"Yeah," said Bobby. "We're Humans. But I guess you can also call us Earthlings."

"Frell! When is Crichton when I need him?"

"Who's Crichton?" asked Sheila.

"He's an astronaut from your Earth. He's been trying to get home for a couple of cycles now."

"Sooo, is this Crichton fellow your boyfriend or something?" asked Eric.

"Oh, please. He's not my type?"

"What exactly is your type?" asked the cavalier.

"Eric! She was telling us about how she got here, remember?" Diana pulled Eric aside to whisper in his ear. "Ease up on the monochrome hottie, lover boy. You don't know if she has acid for blood or if she plants eggs in her mates for her babies to eat alive."

"What?!?"

"Just ease off until you know more. Alright?"

"Uh, sure. Okay." He distanced himself from the others and shivered a little when ever he glanced at Chiana.

"That was an awfully cruel trick. And quite well done, too." Diana hadn't seen Rygel sitting there.

"Oh, you. You startled me."

"You like him, don't you?" asked Rygel.

"Me? Like Eric? Please. He's pig-headed. Arrogant. Rude. Obnoxious. Always things about money and himself."

"And yet you still like him. Isn't love a horrible thing?"

"You know, if you don't shut up you may find yourself down that pit again really soon farting a lot of helium."

"Hmph, and people wonder why I say that females are always the more dangerous of the species, no matter what species they are found in."

Diana just held up a hand and walked over to the group listening to Chiana's story.

"Once Rygel's done haggling," said the Nebari, "he asks my help to check out this local legend of a small impenetrable building that houses a chest of jewels. Only when we get there, the door is wide open and the jewels are right in the middle on a display table. So we go in to check it out but before we could do anything the door closes and the jewels on the display table begin flashing. And I begin thinking to myself, 'What has Rygel gotten me into this time'."

Conversation stopped as Enik came over. "Very well. They can go with you. But the terms of our agreement stand."

"What agreement?" asked Chiana.

"I'll explain on the way," Hank said. "Okay guys, we're heading out again."

AUTHOR'S NOTES

If you haven't done it yet, go to google and look up images of the Sleestak. They were the coolest thing in their day back in the mid 70's. Also check out a picture of a Dimetrodon so you'll have an idea of what Alf was riding.

As you could probably guess my little run in that the Borg had with the Seventh Doctor and Ace was a sort of teaser as well as a means to give an idea of what kind of fighters the other Doctors are looking for. Boogles the mind, doesn't it? My apologies to any hurt fans of Bionic Six and the Power Rangers.

Torchy was a dinosaur character from the original LAND OF THE LOST show and I just loved the thought of using him for my story. Send complaints to Torchy.

As for Alf, at the end of the Alf show he was almost rescued by other survivors from his planet but was taken away by the American military. Sad way to end the show I thought so I set him free in the Land of the Lost. Maybe he'll join Starfleet or something. Haven't thought that far yet. Right now he's one of my cameos.

People have been requesting that I use Farscape for years so here we go. Hope you enjoy it and let the fun continue.

And yes, the Sleestak did have some creature trapped in a foggy pit that they considered to be their god to which they would sacrifice others to. I just thought the whole Rygel and the helium thing was just too funny to pass up.

I was going to add more to this posting with the Star Wars bounty hunters taking on Q's Star Trek choices but it'll have to wait. People have been waiting for me to post so I shall. I'm really having fun with Chapter 8. More surprise guests coming next time. You won't believe my mind.

Send me some ideas and maybe I'll be able to use them. Or they may germinate some other bizarre but very useful ideas for me to use. But remember I am totally unfamiliar with anima. Sorry anima-lovers.

BIONIC SIX (1987)

Bionic-1

Mother-1

Sport-1

Rock-1

IQ

Karate-1

F.L.U.F.F.I.

MIGHTY MORPHIN' POWER RANGERS (1993 – 1996)

Blue Ranger

Red Ranger

Pink Ranger

Yellow Ranger

Black Ranger

Green Ranger

DOCTOR WHO

Ace

FARSCAPE (1999 – 2004)

Dominar Rygel XVI – (Jonathan Hardy)

Chiana – (Gigi Edgley)


	5. Chapter 5

Part 5 – LET THE FIGHTING BEGIN

ACT 1 – THIS LITTLE LIGHT OF MINE

He flew across the sky in a yellow blur. It hadn't taken him long to discover that the strange land was only about 35 miles long and about 20 miles wide. Somehow this place was wrapped up in a tesseract. It was a universe onto itself; if you went over the mountain range on the left side of the river you came over the mountain range on the right side of the river.

The sky was another matter altogether. There was an impenetrable barrier about four miles above the land that on closer inspection seemed less like an invisible barrier and more like a screen. And what a screen. It was like nothing he had even seen before. It could display various astrological bodies such as suns and moons along with the heat, radiation and other effects that go along with them. Yes, he was going to enjoy learning the secrets of this place.

Sinestro began scanning the local area, as he had been commanded by the self-proclaimed Master, for signs of the rivals they were expecting, or the Borg which he and his fellow members of the Legion of Doom had already faced before when their own universe had been invaded by the cybernetic creatures.

"This land has a beauty that belies the threat of the creatures that dwell within it," said one of his companions that stood on a yellow glowing platform with rails which automatically kept pace with the former Green Lantern.

"Yes, I can spy things down there that put even me to shivers," replied the Scarecrow.

"Those pylons interest me," said Gorilla Grodd. "Sinestro, has your ring been able to tell you anything about them?"

Sinestro scowled. "No, my ring barely registers their presence. They may be slightly out of synch with time. Yet another mystery to solve while we are here."

"Has your ring been able to confirm this compulsion or geis to not harm or hinder this Master person?" asked the Scarecrow.

"Yes, it is there. And before you ask, my ring is unable to remove it from myself or anyone else."

Grodd nodded. "I have been mentally trying to remove it from my mind but it refuses to budge. So for now we bide our time." He ducked as a pterodactyl chose to swoop in and inspect the potential prey, but Sinestro formed a fly swatter and swatted it.

"Look there!" cried the Scarecrow. Where he pointed was a glowing red figure without discernable features walking down a path.

"Let's investigate." Having said that, Sinestro swooped down, causing the riders on the platform to clutch hold desperately to the handrails as they descended. They landed in front of the red humanoid figure, who stopped to regard them.

"This is not your time or place," said the figure telepathically.

"We know that," said Grodd. "But we are here and we would know about this place. Tell us." The massive gorilla reached out with his mind to telepathically seize the mind of the other but was not prepared for the strength of the rebuttal. He clutched his head in agony as he fell to one knee.

"Very well, we'll do this the hard way." Using his ring, Sinestro formed a giant yellow hand around the red figure while the Scarecrow pulled out his gas gun and fired fear gas at the red captive.

"Now, my red friend, tell us who you are and where you are going," asked the giggling, confident Scarecrow.

"This is not your time or place," repeated the glowing figure. Then he raised a hand through the yellow energy fist that surrounded him and three small beams of red light flew from it and struck the super-villains, leaving them still as statues and covered with a red glowing light.

The red glowing man walked up to them, inspected each of them briefly before turning to resume his traveling. Things were worse than he had previously assumed. There was a lot he had to correct.

ACT 2 – THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

Bossk took a long look through his macro-binoculars. Yes, those were the silly looking spandex uniforms he'd been shown. He'd found his prey all right. And even better, he found them before that upstart Boba Fett.

The breeze brought him their scents, and his large nostrils flared open to take it in. Saliva began to build up in the back of his throat as his anticipation built up. There were nine of them. Six males and three females. Only one, maybe two, seemed to fighters worthy of concern.

He sent signals to the other hunters, excluding Fett, figuring that if he took his prey without Fett then maybe he'd be rewarded Fett's share as well.

He'd show that Mandalorian armor wearing fool who was the better hunter.

Meanwhile, down in the grove below, Malak raised his club in outrage at the denial to his request.

"Admiral McCoy," interjected Captain Picard. "Perhaps if you would be willing to give some of-"

"No!" snapped the admiral.

It was a frustrating situation. Capt. Picard outranked Capt. Sisko and Capt. Janeway by tenure, but Admiral McCoy outranked Picard all together but had had no real experience in command in decades, even longer on being part of a landing party.

The true problem lay in the fact that Admiral McCoy was basking in his new found youth and not taking charge of their mission. Instead he seemed more interested in exchanging barbed insults with the large barbarian named Malak that they had encountered. Picard had hoped to get some useful information out of Malak, such as the lay of the land, dangerous plants or animals, allies, or possibly the location of the Borg.

Malak, on the other hand, seemed to have a somewhat juvenile mentality and demanded some of the aromic treats that McCoy carried in a large picnic basket that Guinan had prepared for him before they had left Deep Space Nine.

"Ambassador Spock, can you reason with him?" Captain Picard finally asked.

The Vulcan still wore his dark Romulan robes and was in the midst of scanning a butterfly that had a three-foot wingspan when Picard made his request. "You are right, Captain Picard. We have delayed on the wonders of this place for far too long. But I must also agree with Admiral McCoy. The dried meat – or jerky, if you prefer – that the admiral is hording could possibly prove to be too much for Malak and cause him considerable intestinal trauma unless he varies his diet more."

Admiral McCoy scowled. He knew his old friend was barbing him. "You just couldn't let it be, could you? I'm an omnivore, not an herbivore! I'm supposed to eat meat! I haven't had a decent meal in over fifty years and now I'm supposed to just share it with this barbarian?"

"It would be most generous of you, admiral," said Spock. "Though we have no true evidence that he is a primitive barbarian."

"Of course you don't," said Spock. "That's because he's from the twentieth century."

"How did you reach that conclusion?" Picard asked, eyeing Malak for whatever evidence that McCoy had spotted.

Admiral McCoy sighed. "He had a small pox inoculation scar on his arm. I saw it when he was waving his arms around."

Spock did a quick scan of the bewildered Malak. "He is correct. There are trace amounts of the small pox vaccine in his system."

"Ha! We've surprised Spock! That calls for an award." He reached into the basket and pulled out a couple of large strips of jerky. "Here you go," he said, handing it to the surprised Malak. "It's said to be the best alligator jerky to come out of Florida."

Picard gapped. "Admiral, I thought alligators are a protected species."

McCoy shook his head. "You're thinking about the endangered crocodiles. Two different creatures. There are huge alligator farms in Florida and Georgia." He took a bite of the jerky in his hand. "Klingons and Aldorians love the stuff."

Picard steered the conversation back toward Malak who was happily busy chewing jerky. "But if he's had a small pox vaccine than he must have come from the twentieth century," said Picard, thinking about the paper he might write about the cultural changes Malak may have gone through. "-how did he get here and become like this?"

"I'm a doctor, not a detective," snapped the rejuvenated man. "But since I'm also an admiral I'm willing to hazard a guess." He tapped the jerky to his chin as he contemplated the matter. Malak began darting glances at everyone while trying to stuff more of the delicious jerky in his mouth. "I'm thinking that our large acquaintance here must have stumbled through one of the many time doorways around here when he was a young child. Probably raised himself, which would explain his behavior. And a steady diet of some of the unusual fruits and vegetables could have affected his thalamus and pituitary glands causing him to grow, especially if he was eating a large concentration of them during his natural growth spurts."

Spock nodded. "I would need to have more time to study this data, but I believe that your hypothesis is very plausible."

Malak managed to swallow the jerky after a moments difficulty. "What is he saying? I cannot understand the pointy eared one."

McCoy grinned. "Just that you are not from as far away as we had originally thought. Now let's talk turkey. I have a turkey sandwich here in this basket for you if you can tell us something we need to know. Are you interested?"

Near the stream that flowed through the grove, Captain Janeway sat on a moss covered log with Kes. The younger woman was shaking due to the trauma of forcibly being returning to corporal form by Q.

"Kes?"

"Captain, I'm sorry. It's just so much of a change."

"Is it really so different?"

"I-I feel as if I've just become handicapped, crippled."

"After all this is done,-" Janeway hesitated, carefully choosing her words. "Will you be able to return to how you were?"

Kes gave a desperate laugh. "I'm not sure. I really don't know."

"Kes, do you regret Q choosing you for this?"

"I-I don't know. I just don't know." She lowered her head.

"Why didn't you come visit us? We would have loved to have seen you. You wouldn't believe how fast Naomi has grown. Neelix says it's all the nutrients she gets from eating his cooking but Tuvok and the doctor says-"

"Captain," she interrupted. "I was reveling in my new abilities. Exploring on a scale you couldn't imagine, with senses you can not comprehend. Time seemed to flow differently. I-" She began to sob.

Captain Janeway patted her shoulder. "I understand. You became a butterfly. You took on a different form and were exploring in ways your other form could never do."

Kes burst out laughing with tears still coming down her elven face. "The doctor showed me a field of butterflies once on the holodeck. It was like a dream."

The captain nodded. "Kes, if you do return to your 'butterfly' form again. Try to come down to visit us caterpillars from time to time, okay?"

They hugged and the captain passed a canteen of water to her still shaky friend.

Just downstream, sitting on a large rock, General Martok regarded the Bajoran woman with his one good eye. "You left Starfleet."

Ro glanced at him briefly. "We had a disagreement."

The Klingon laughed. "I'll bet you did," with his deep booming voice.

"What are our chances of surviving this?"

His face became somber. "You are afraid of dying?"

"I was just yanked from where I was supposed to die! Everybody that I had let get close to me did die there! I don't know whether to be grateful for being alive or angry that I wasn't left to die with the others!"

Martok lowered his head thinking about what she had said. "Klingons are a warrior people. Death is always with us. We like to think that every day is a good day to die."

Ro snorted. "That's not exactly a secret."

He nodded. "True, but what other races fail to realize about Klingons is that we also believe that every day is also a good day to live. And that, my young Bajoran, is the true reason Klingons fight so hard. Because we want to live! And enjoy each day as it comes! And then when the time comes that we falter in battle due to age or chance we will have died with honor with a life we will have lived to it's fullest!"

"I've never heard it explained that way before," she said. "Although there are a few Bajoran philosophers that have listed similar insights."

"Yes, the Bajoran people have a number of similar ideas and concepts with the Klingons. When we return I would have you read some excerpts from some of my favorite Klingon philosophers."

"I…thank you."

Captain Sisko walked over from the bushes where he had taken care of a few biological needs. "General Martok. Ro Laren. Ready yourselves. I believe we are being watched. Comm. systems are being blocked."

He continued walking upstream to warn the others, but chaos erupted first.

General Martok received a blast to the shoulder that threw him to the ground where he rolled into the stream's edge. He shook his head to orient himself, then dipped his shoulder into the water to cool the hot metal of his shoulder pad. Growling with anger, he looked for his attackers.

Ro Laren was behind a large tree exchanging fire with someone out of sight deep in the brush of the lush tropical plants. Sisko was closer and grappling with a large reptilian humanoid with some type of armor that appeared to also be used for space walks.

Charging, Martok was able to tackle Bossk just before the Trandoshan could sink his teeth into the captain of Deep Space Nine's neck. Sisko was tossed free and unconscious while the Klingon and the Trandoshan traded blows until Bossk caught Martak's hand in his jaws.

Gritting his teeth, head-butted the Trandoshan bounty hunter in a distracting motion for his other hand to pull a knife on his vest. Thus armed, but still in close quarters, Martok was able to stab Bossk in the gut, though the suit the Trandoshan wore provided some protection. Bossk released his bite on Martok's hand and batted the Klingon away so that he could flee with the Klingon blade still in his side.

Martok had the wind knocked out of him but he managed to draw a phaser and fire a few volleys in the direction of the bounty hunter.

Nearby, Captain Janeway and Kes took cover behind the log that they had been sitting on moments before having been fired on.

The robotic bounty hunter IG-88 was propelled just above the vegetation and uneven ground by a small rocket pack on its back. It's multiple optical sensors scanned on various wavelengths to confirm the location of his prey.

Janeway tried targeting the assassin droid, but it refused to stay in one place with it's rocket pack. Finally, IG-88 decided to end the one-sided game and sent a barrage of blasts into the three foot wide log causing huge chunks of it to splinter. Janeway was knocked back by the blasting and showered with wood shrapnel.

"Captain!" Kes screamed. Then she turned on the oncoming robot and became very angry. The energy blast that emanated from the female Ocampa was indefinable to the assassin droid's sensors. Some might say it was psychic energy, and they would be partially correct. Others would argue that it had to have been a type of solar or at least electromagnetic pulse used by Kes, and they would be partially correct, too. But whatever the full definition of the energy used on IG-88, it was effective, but costly, too.

Kes fell next to the Voyager's captain in a completely catatonic state.

The rocket pack had blown but IG-88's shell was only slightly damaged. The central processors of the IG-88 were completely down. Back-up circuitry tried repeatedly to get the protected memory unit back online even as self repairs were underway. A protected sub-server installed as a safety feature engaged itself and took over the rudimentary movements of the robotic shell enabling it to attempt fleeing until IG-88 rebooted itself. After getting itself to it's feet, the safety program began guiding the robotic shell away from the battlefield over the unleveled ground with great care.

Meanwhile, McCoy, Picard and Spock had taken cover behind a group of trees and boulders while Malak ran away. The three men exchanged fire with their attackers that were on either side of them.

"Who are they?" yelled McCoy.

"Either residents of this place or agents of Q2," answered Spock. "Regardless, they seem to wish our demise."

"I think that there are just two of them currently firing on us," commented Picard, as he ducked down. "The others are under attack as well."

McCoy smirked. "You know, even after a hundred years, I've noticed that it still seems to come down to these damn shootouts. You'd think that we would have come up with some other means to settle our differences by now." So saying, he aimed carefully at where the shots were coming from across the stream and fired. He was rewarded by with the collapse of one of the snipers. The other bounty hunter soon stopped firing and brush could be heard snapping as he left.

Spock looked up from his tricorder. "They seem to employ a type of stealth field on their persons which is why they were not detected by our proximity alert. Also it appears that the sniper that Admiral McCoy shot was an android or robot."

"Damn it, Spock!" snapped Admiral McCoy. "We've known each for about a century now. Call me Bones, okay. No more of that 'Admiral this or that'. If I'm going to relive my glory days or at least my youth, then I'd like to use the name everybody called me by."

Spock raised an eyebrow. "Indeed." Captain Picard repressed a chuckle.

That was when Ro arrived out of breath. "Doctor! I mean Admiral McCoy!"

"Damn it! Call me Bones!"

She stared uncomprehending before adding, "The others are hurt!"

"Damn!" He scooped up his medical kit he had had Lt. Barclay find for him before he had left Deep Space Nine. He stepped over a large rock and moved with a speed that belied his age.

Spock followed to see if he could give any aid. Ro Laren was about to as well when Captain Picard stopped her. "Ensign Ro- I'm sorry," he said, suddenly remembering that she was no longer a Starfleet ensign, but had run off and joined the Maquis. "Ro, I'd like you to come with me. Admiral McCoy…Bones, shot one of the attackers. An android or possibly a robot. I'd like to see if we can bring it back and possibly learn something from it about our attackers."

Ro nodded. "Very well, sir." The mention of her time in Starfleet hurt, but it also brought to mind that if she survives al this, she'd have to figure out what to do with her life, that is if Starfleet didn't take her away and lock her up. No. Captain Picard would never allow that. But what to do?

ACT 3 – A FAMILY OUTING

The man and woman walked through the lush jungle. He was much taller than she was so she had to reach up some to hold his hand, although she didn't mind. They had been happily married for years.

"Herman," she said, "when you first suggested that we go away for a week to look at statuary with your golf partner and his family I really didn't think that it was a good idea. But everyone seems to be having such a good time." She gave him a quick hug. "I'm glad we came. It's almost like a second honeymoon. Except we have our family along."

Herman was seven feet tall with a slight greenish-gray completion. The top of his head was flat and he had a very noticeable scar running down his unusually large forehead above his right eye. Even more noticeable were the two bolts that stuck out of either side of his neck. Still he was a jolly sort who was very happy with his unlife.

The main reason for his joy was his wife Lily. She sported a white streak in her black tresses that he loved even though it took her so long to comb every night. She had a wonderful chalk-white complexion and wore flowing, tattered gowns that he adored. Plus, she kept him on track in case he ever forget something important, which was often.

"The kids are off playing together. Grandpa seems to be happily chatting with my golf partner's uncle. Spot's running around somewhere." He paused to look around. "Now if we could just find that statue place where we are spending the night."

She playfully put her hand on his chest. "Oh, I don't know. I'm enjoying walking around here with you so much I almost hope we don't find it."

"Yes, dear," he responded, absent-mindedly patting his wife's hand. "Oh! I think I see a building over that way. Let's check it out, Lily."

As he made a path through the thick leaves they began spotting a number of statues that were partially covered with foliage.

"Oh my, what beautiful statues!" exclaimed Lily. "So lifelike."

The first statue was of a shorter man with a harsh face wearing a mean-looking uniform. He had a gun in his hand with which he seemed to be pointing at them.

"I can't tell. Is he military or police?" asked Herman.

"A little bit of both, dear. I think it's a Gestapo uniform from WWII."

"And look," pointed Herman. "At their feet, a little sign to tell who it's supposed to be." He moved a few vines with his foot so he could read it. "Maj. Wolfgang Hochstetter. Hmm. Doesn't look very happy."

"Oh, look Herman, this one looks so scared you can almost see him still shivering."

Herman glanced at the statue in a basic American uniform though the man didn't look like a soldier. He read the small sign at the statue's feet. "Maj. Frank Burns. I think they chiseled off too much of his lips."

"This one's in a lab coat. It's wonderful workmanship."

The statue face seemed both to extrude both disbelief and horror at whatever he was gazing upon. Herman looked down at the plaque. "Dr. Nigel Fenway." He turned to his wife with a question. "I thought statues were usually only made of heroes, athletes and conquerors?"

"In this day and age anyone can be a hero, dear." She moved over to the next statue. "Here's one of a young lady."

This one seemed to be in a fighting stance, ready to lash out. Herman timidly reached forward with his foot and cleared the name plate of some leaves. "Juliet Stewart."

"And here's a young man. Fit, too," she added." If only he were alive, perhaps he would be the one for poor Marilyn."

Herman sighed as he glanced down at the name plate of David Vincent. The statue seemed as if he had just been running from something. "Dear, you can't keep fixating on Marilyn's plight. It only makes it harder for everyone. She's off enjoying her spring break down in Florida. Maybe she'll find a guy there who can look past her…deformities and see the inner beauty that we can see or maybe not. Let her have her chance to enjoy her vacation and we'll enjoy ours. All right?"

She smiled and hugged him. "I'm so glad Dr. Frankenstein put such a big heart in you."

He blushed for a moment before seeing something that caught his attention. "Oh honey! Can we get it? Can we? Can we? Can we?"

Her mouth hung open in horror. "Uh…I was hoping for a something a little more classical or regal."

"Oh, but it's wonderful!"

"Let's at least look around a little more. I'm sure Madam Medusa has some more wonderful works around here. She took his arm and led him away from the long hook nosed short statue of Gonzo. She glanced back and shuddered as she imagined it being in her yard.

Not in her unlife. After all, what would the neighbors think!

"Ah, there you two are! Welcome to the Garden of Eternity! Home of a hundred statues!" Gomez Addams grinned enthusiastically as he walked over to them with his cane in hand. He was just under six feet tall and wore a dark pinstriped suit. "Morticia and I got here a few minutes ago. We've been looking for Madam Medusa but she doesn't seem to be around."

"Things are a little overgrown," Lily commented.

Gomez nodded. "Morticia noted that too. That is something Madam Medusa would not have allowed."

Herman looked concerned. "Does that mean we don't have a place to stay tonight?"

"Oh, she wouldn't mind us spending the night," said Morticia as she glided over which was rather necessary considering the skin-tight black gown with octopus-like tendrils at the bottom that she wore. "Madam Medusa was always one for inviting travelers to come in and rest."

"And they probably inspired her in her sculpting," added Lily.

Morticia nodded. "Travelers did tend to supply her with the raw materials of her works of art."

A shrill scream sounded in the jungle, but was suddenly cut off by a choking noise.

"Ah, Thing has found something to entertain himself with," Morticia said, by way of explanation.

Lily had a look of concern. "That reminds me, do you think the children are alright?"

Gomez waved off the concern. "Oh, Wednesday and Pugsley are probably showing Eddie the giant spiders or the Velociraptors."

"Are they dangerous?" she asked.

He looked thoughtful as he considered the plight of the children while he tapped his cane against the sole of his shoe to remove some dirt. "I think the odds favor the kids. But the Velociraptors do have the home field advantage so I guess I'd say it'll be even money."

Just then the Addams' butler, Lurch, slowly came around some brush dragging a statue. He was close to Herman's height but had a lighter complexion.

"Turn it around, Lurch," said Gomez. "I want them to see the statue we'll be buying."

Lurch complied with a shuddering deep moan. His bulk moved out of the way to reveal a statue of a petrified Sleestak with its arms reaching out before it.

Herman and Lily were struck with wonder. "Amazing!" Lily finally managed to say.

"Yes, he is, isn't he?" Gomez said, throwing his arm over the statue's shoulder. "He'll make a great coat and hat rack."

"I could never even imagine such creatures," said Mrs. Munster.

"Well, you had better start," chuckled Gomez, "because they are on tonight's menu after we hunt some down."

"What do they taste like?" asked Herman, who had reached out a hand to touch one of the statue's claws.

"Like lobster, only tougher and not quite as salty," answered Mr. Addams.

Lily tapped the side of her mouth. "So that was what you brought the black cauldron for, to cook these things."

Morticia smiled. "They're called Sleestak. And, yes, we will cook the claws and feet in the cauldron, but Lurch and Cousin Itt will be treating us to one of their barbecue masterpieces where they cook the torsos on a spit over a fire, coating it with special sauces Itt picked up from a special friend of his, Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Madam Medusa loved these kind of meals."

"How did you meet this Madam Medusa?" asked Herman.

Morticia smiled. "Before we had children, we had traveled quite a bit to see some of the more exotic and unusual places. Investigate ancient Mayan temples, robbing Egyptian crypts, hiking in Pellucidar, head-hunting in Africa, and exploring family roots in Transylvania. But while checking on real-estate in Eerie, Indiana, we happened to find this pylon that brought us here." She held out her hand to Gomez who took it and kissed it. "We found Madam Medusa here and hit it off quite well. She even gave me a cutting of one of her man-eating plants which I was able to grow and still have."

"Then we met the red fellow who runs this place. Wasn't too happy with us a first."

"He showed us how to get back home," Morticia added.

"And now we come here every couple of years," said Gomez. "Partially to get away from it all, partially to reconnect with Madam Medusa."

"She was very interested in seeing the children as they got older," Morticia added. "I wonder what has become of her?"

"Oh lookee!" Herman exclaimed as he dragged another statue out of the brush where it had been half buried in leaves and vines. It was a stone image of an angry woman in a long flowing robe with a head full of snakes instead of hair.

"It's Madam Medusa!" cried out Morticia.

Gomez nodded. "It's the old '_get the gorgon to look in a mirror_' trick. Get's them every time." He pulled out an already smoldering cigar out of his inner jacket pocket. "Oh well, she was always into her work, I'll guess she'll just stay there then."

"Maybe not," said Herman, holding up a finger. "Lily dear, wouldn't she look lovely in the garden amongst the poison ivy?"

Lily clasped her hands together. "Oh Hermie!" she said with excitement. Then, as an afterthought, looked to their hosts. "Do you think she'll mind if we take her?"

Morticia shook head ever so slightly. "No. Place her in your garden. She would appreciate that her last great work went to a lovely couple like you, who looked on her works with delight."

Lily hugged her husband which was a little more difficult then normal since he was jumping up and down in joy.

Just then dozens of ninjas in purple and black rushed out of the lush greenery of the jungle and surrounded the two couples and their butler.

Herman managed an 'oh dear' as he pulled his wife in close to him.

"It's okay, Herman," she said, trying to sooth him. "They don't have torches and pitchforks."

As if they were one being, the ninjas all drew their swords.

"Mommy!" squeaked Herman.

Gomez's reaction was different; he grinned wildly with exuberance as he placed his still lit cigar back into his inner jacket pocket. "My love, did you order the ninjas for me?"

"Not this time, dear. I was saving that idea until our trip to Bermuda."

The ninjas parted to allow a muscular Japanese man to walk past them. He wore metal armor loosely based off of the armor worn by samurai warriors. The armor he wore was also uniquely covered with blades that extruded out for unwary opponents. On his head he wore a metal helmet with a metal mask attached that covered his face, leaving only the eyes showing. On his back was a purple cape that seemed to double as a robe.

Shredder looked with disdain at the pitiful people before him. He had faced ninjas, cyborgs, mutants, time-travelers, dimensional-travelers, aliens, and even a few politicians. This group of mutates nothing to him and his men. Shredder was even more angry that the Master had ordered him and his Foot soldiers to explore the area and find natives to get information from. He had ordered him! If not for the inability of any of them able to harm the Master, the Shredder would have lived up to his name with the so called Master. Meanwhile, he'd take his frustrations out on these poor fools who looked like rejects from a Hollywood costume party.

"I am Shredder. If you wish to live you will tell us everything you know about this land and anyone you may have encountered recently."

Herman raised his hand. "Well, um, you see, Mr. Shredder-"

"Never!" cried Mr. Addams with glee. He took his cane, and with a twist, was able to unsheathe his cane sword. "Ah ha!"

Shredder nodded to one of the Foot ninjas on his left. The ninja silently charged forward while Gomez yelled a battle cry that shattered the noise of the jungle. The swords clanged together, and as Morticia watched her husband risk life and limb, she gentle sipped a cup of tea that Lurch handed to her.

"Ah ha!" exclaimed Gomez, as he inserted his cane sword between the other man's ribs. He watched as the other man fell to his feet dead. "Wonderful!" He looked up expectantly at Shredder. "Again!"

Annoyed, Shredder nodded to three more of his Foot soldiers, and they charged forth. Gomez's eyes gleamed in merriment. He placed his foot under the handle of his fallen foe's weapon and kicked it up where he could grab it in the air. "Ha ha! Feel free to join in, Munster! There's plenty for everyone!" He hacked and slashed while laughing much to Shredder's growing admiration.

"Grab the others!" Shredder shouted, thinking that a few hostages would end this foolishness.

Some of his men moved toward the tall for of Lurch slowly as fear grow in them as they took in his sullen, morbid expression. But fear of Shredder motivated them to attack when instinct told them not to go any where near the tall man.

Lurch let out a low groan. Then reached over and picked up a statue of a man with long sideburns wearing a white outfit with lots of rhinestones. Raising it over his head he threw it at the surprised ninjas. All but one were able to dodge out of the way. They separated in order to surround this strong man and were now more wary. Lurch picked up another statue, this time one that was of an astronaut.

The other members of the Foot clan sought easier prey in the form of the cowering Herman Munster and his wife Lily. While the Munsters appearance might be shocking to most people, these ninjas had seen far stranger while serving under Shredder, and now almost expected the unusual and bizarre.

Lily tried to slap the man's hands away as they grabbed her wrists. When she resisted one of them slapped her across the face.

"Lily!" Herman let out an inhuman roar as he grabbed the two men who had been trying to hold his arms. He threw one at the side of one of the white marble walls about thirty feet away where the ninja left a red imprint of himself before sliding down to the ground. The other man he threw out over the jungle where some vines suddenly shot up and ensnared the black and purple robed ninja and pulled him down to consume.

Morticia showed no concern or resistance when two men grabbed her and held her tight. Their eyes widened in alarm as they realized their mistake just before gravity pulled them to the ground. She looked up catching Shredder's eye before she raised her palms to reveal the poisoned needle attached to the back of her wedding ring. Then from her sleeve she pulled out a blowgun.

Shredder was just about to order his men to kill them while dispatching the grinning madman with the swords himself, when cries and screams from the jungle stopped them all. Even Herman came back to his senses and he took the moment to help up his wife who had been previously attached to the throat of one of her attackers. Lily dabbed at her mouth with a handkerchief that her husband had pulled out of his pocket. They listened to the screams coming closer. "Now who could that be?" she asked.

Two people burst out of the jungle and tripped over a body. They rolled briefly before struggling to their feet again. Seeing Shredder, they hurried over and fell to their knees.

Bebop and Rocksteady had worked for Shredder for years now. And even Shredder was surprised that he kept them on since they often proved more incompetent then effective. Both men had been undisciplined street thugs before Shredder took them in and had them mutated to counter his nemesis: the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Bebop was mutated into a human warthog sporting a purple Mohawk, nose ring and shades. Rocksteady had been mutated into a human rhinoceros and preferred a more military look with army camouflage pants.

"It's after us!" Rocksteady gasped.

"It won't stop!" Bebop managed to say. "It just keeps coming!"

A loud roar sounded nearby, adding to the tension of the people in the statue filled garden.

Herman scanned the jungle. "Spot? Here Spot!"

Spot roared again in the jungle and a burst of flame could be seen a little ways away. Suddenly, there was a hurt squealing sound that could be heard running away.

"Oh no, Herman! Whatever that was hurt Spot!"

"It's coming!" exclaimed Bebop in terror. Rocksteady clutched at Bebop while staring in horror into the lush greenery of the jungle.

"Enough of this farce!" yelled Shredder. "To me my Foot soldiers. Leave this coming beast to kill these people." He turned and left, his living ninjas following behind.

Bebop and Rocksteady were about to go as well when they heard Gomez speak.

"Morticia," Gomez said, as he used his hands to frame a picture of Bebop and Rocksteady. "Can't you imagine their heads hanging above the mantle at home? Or perhaps the commode?"

The two mutates bolted after Shredder and the others. On the opposite side of the clearing a large traveling chest that seemed slightly chard rushed out of the jungle. Beneath it, the hundreds of little legs that had been propelling it at a very fast pace, dug in their heels while it seemed to look around. Morticia calmly pointed toward were Bebop and Rocksteady had exited into the jungle. The Luggage seemed to almost nod in appreciation before charging after its previous prey.

Gomez went to pursue but his wife called to him. "Bubbele, stay here for now. You can hunt them latter."

"'Tish, that's Yiddish!" He returned to his wife and began passionately kissing her up and down her arms.

"We have company, my dear," she reminded him.

"With reluctance, Gomez disengaged from his wife's arm. "Ah, yes, Munster, you were great. I think you may have thrown a few of those fellows father than I've ever seen you hit a golf ball."

Herman blushed bright green and red. "It was just one of those 'stand up for your lady' moments. It gets the blood moving as well."

"Herman's so modest," Lily said.

"And you were in excellent form as well, old chap." He slapped the black-robed skeleton on the shoulder causing him to almost drop his scythe.

"YOU SAW THAT?" Then paused. "YOU REALLY THINK I HAVE A GOOD FORM?" He took a practice swing with his scythe ending the life of one of the gravely injured ninjas that had been left behind. While most people never did notice him, when they did, he tried to make the best of it. Besides, now that he had time to really consider them, he could tell they weren't exactly like most of his regular clients.

"Superb!" cried out Gomez. "When ever any us were putting last touches to an attack you were there swinging away with that thing."

"I DO GET A LOT OF PRACTICE WHILE WORKING, BUT IT CAN BE SO MUNDANE THAT SOMETIMES I FEAR I MIGHT LOSE THE DRIVE THAT THIS JOB TAKES," admitted Death.

"You work around here?" Herman asked. He had found an old shovel and was marking a spot to bury all the bodies. He was used to putting people in the ground as that is a large part of what he did working for Gateman, Goodbury and Graves. Besides, he wanted it to look neat and tidy around here if they were going to stay for their vacation. He did a head count of nine bodies, but then noticed one of the vines from the jungle slowly reaching out and snagging one of the fallen ninjas around the neck and slowly dragging it back with it. As more vines came out hesitantly, Herman decided against burial and put aside the shovel.

"MOST OF MY WORK IS ELSEWHERE. BUT I WAS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD CHECKING ON AN ACQUAINTANCE OF MINE, AND I WAS SUB-CONTRACTED OUT TO THIS JOB."

"And a fine job you did, too," Lily commented. Morticia nodded her approval.

Herman tapped his chin for a moment as he struggled with a thought." Say, Gomez and I were hoping to get a group of four to go golfing. I figured after the way you swing that scythe you must have quite the killing stroke out on the golf course. Do you think that you'd like to join us?"

The skull seemed to in deep consideration before nodding it's approval. "IT SOUNDS INTERESTING, AND I AM DUE FOR A HOLIDAY. I THINK I'D LIKE TO TRY MY HAND AT GOLF."

"Ah, you have never lived until you've played golf, my friend," Mr. Addams said.

"THEN IT'LL PROVE TO BE VERY INTERESTING INDEED."

"Um, what do we call you?" asked Herman, hesitantly.

"I HAVE BEEN KNOWN BY MANY NAMES, BUT I THINK I WILL CHOOSE BILL DOOR FOR NOW. IT HAS FOND MEMORIES FOR ME."

Gomez puffed on his cigar. "Now we just need a fourth player. Hmmm. Morticia, what about that old fiancé of Grandmama's? Beetlejuice, I think it was?"

"Gomez!" she looked at him in alarm. "You know what a dreadful influence he is on the children!"

"Say no more," he said, nodding with agreement. "It took weeks to get all those skeletons back in the closet after he last visited."

"Beetlejuice?" Herman said. "What an interesting name. Beetlejuice. It just rolls off the tongue. Beetlej-"

"No!" said Morticia. "Do not speak the ghoul's name again!"

"Oh, he's one of those type of ghouls," Herman said, with some understanding. He raised a hand to his lips and made a zipper motion across then to show that he wouldn't say it anymore.

"I DO BELIEVE I KNOW OF A POSSIBLE FOURTH PLAYER," mentioned Death. "HE'S THE ACQUAINTANCE I MENTIONED EARLIER."

"Is he respectable?" asked Morticia.

"HE'S A WIZARD. IT WAS HIS LUGGAGE THAT CAME BARGING THROUGH HERE EARLIER." He glanced at a small hourglass where the sands that were suppose to be flowing through seemed to have formed a barricade. He shook the hourglass, and then shook his bony head. "I BELIEVE HE HAS TIME FOR A COUPLE OF ROUNDS."

"Capital! Herman and I will chart a course. You go find your friend. We'll see if we can get a few rounds of golf in."

"Oh boy! Oh boy! Oh boy!" Herman said, jumping up and down.

Gomez watched as the last of the bodies were dragged into the forest by the vines. "You're going to love playing golf here, Munster. This place really grabs you!"

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AUTHOR'S NOTES

I was going to add more to this but I think everyone has waited long enough for this. Hope you enjoy. Hope you send me reviews.

Hope nobody forgot about our glowing red man walking around the Land of the Lost wanting to restore order. He's one of my essential ingredients to my story.

Okay, Malak. Malak was from the third season of Land of the Lost and is played by Richard Kiel who also played one of the more well known James Bond villains, Jaws, as well as the television Wild, Wild West villain Voltaire. I always thought that Malak was always too large and smart to be a barbarian so I thought I'd add a little to his history to explain that.

Hope everybody liked the brief battle between the bounty hunters and the people from the Star Trek universe.

I just had to add the Addams Family and the Munsters to the mix. Not only are they interesting but I've got plans for one of the characters from the show which I can't tell you about just yet.

As for Death, he's from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. If you haven't read them yet I recommend you go to your local library and try one. My wife did and she read the entire 20+ book series in three months. And she doesn't usually like fantasy books. I recommend 'Men at Arms' or 'Guards! Guards!' for the first book even though they are more in the middle of the series. Death took the name Bill Door in the book 'Reaper Man' when he was temporarily lived with normal people.

Hope people can guess the statues in the Medusa's garden. If not, I have a list of where the characters came from a little bit below here. I had long thought to find a way to use HOGAN'S HEROES and MASH, so this was a last ditch effort to do so. As for the other characters, well, I just thought they'd be interesting to speculate.

In the show 'LAND OF THE LOST', there was a character named Medusa in one episode who was running around turning everything to stone. I'm just building on that theme as a setting. She's from a different reality than the gorgon that I used in A Tangled Web Part 3: When In Greece… Plus, she's been turned to stone so I can't use her to defeat the Borg the same way I did earlier anyway.

LAND OF THE LOST

Malak – (Richard Kiel)

THE MUNSTERS

Herman Munster - (Fred Gwynne)

Lily Munster – (Yvonne De Carlo)

Grandpa or Sam Dracula – (Al Lewis)

Eddie Wolfgang Munster – (Butch Patrick)

Marilyn Munster – (Pat Priest)

Spot

THE ADDAMS FAMILY (1964 – 1966)

Gomez Addams – (John Astin)

Morticia Frump Addams – (Carolyn Jones)

Lurch – (Ted Cassidy)

Uncle Fester Frump – (Jackie Coogan)

Pugsley Addams – (Ken Weatherwax)

Wednesday Friday Addams – (Lisa Loring)

Grandmama Addams – (Marie Blake)

Cousin Itt – (Felix Silla)

Thing – (Ted Cassidy)

HOGAN'S HEROES (1965 – 1971)

Maj. Wolfgang Hochstetter – (Howard Caine)

MASH (1972 – 1977)

Maj. Frank Burns – (Larry Linville)

THRESHOLD (2005)

Dr. Nigel Fenway – (Brent Spinner)

DARK SKIES (1997)

Juliet Stewart – (Jeri Ryan)

THE MUPPET SHOW (1976 – 1981)

Gonzo – (Dave Goelz)

THE INVADERS (1967 – 1968)

David Vincent – (Roy Thinnes)

EERIE, INDIANA (1991)

PELLUCIDAR – various sources – all related to Edger Rice Burroughs

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991)

Dr. Hannibal Lecter – (Anthony Hopkins)

BEETLEJUICE (1988)

Beetlejuice – (Michael Keaton)

THE DISCWORLD SERIES

Death

Rincewind

The Luggage


	6. Chapter 6

**A TANGLED WEB PART 6: **

**SUMMARY:** _In the last Borg encounter outside Stockton, CA, during the 1890's, the Borg had managed to assimilate the time-lord known as the Doctor temporarily. Though the Doctor resisted the intrusive presence of the Collective, the Borg were able to learn some of the secrets of the time-lords._

_Upon discovering a potential way past the defenses of the planet Gallifrey, the home planet of the time-lords, a large number of Borg drones and the newly grown Borg queen traveled to the mysterious microverse known as the Land of the Lost._

_But the forceful entrance of the Borg into the Land of the Lost also disturbed the delicate balance of the machinery that run the land causing an increase in the number of people and strange creatures suddenly being brought there._

**ACT 1: **

The Yautja hunters had brought their wounded leader back to the ship. The eldest of the group stood over the table where he watched his oldest friend have his arm stump cauterized by one of the young ones they had brought out with them.

Their hunting expedition was supposed to be a simple one to test the skills of three of the young ones as well as that of the rouge they had taken in to their clan.

The eldest gripped his Nagita staff fiercely causing arthritic pain in his hand joints. He knew he wouldn't live very many solar cycles; nor was that a concern for him. Making sure that his life long friend died with dignity did matter though.

Behind him he could hear the youngest member of their hunting party polishing the new skull that he had acquired. He had less than ten skulls to his collection and was proud to have obtained one from a race that they had never encountered before. It raised his status in the eyes of his peers. The fact that he was the only one to collect a trophy from a hunt gone horribly wrong would add to his prestige. The eldest didn't begrudge him that. He had been young once too.

Finally, with the wound finally cauterized, the Yautja that had been treating their leader put away his equipment and supplies. He turned to the elder. _He will live…if he chooses_. 

The elder regarded him. _We left two of you here_. Where is your brother? 

Checking the underside of the hull. Engines could be ready use shortly. 

The elder's eyes narrowed. _We didn't see your brother when we returned. Check on him._ As the youngster turned to leave, he spoke again. _Remember the land is alien. Trust nothing. Be on your guard against everything._

As the youngster left, the rouge approached. They said nothing. Instead, they exchanged a look of challenge, but neither made a move. The newcomer was reckless and rough. The only reason they had even considered letting him into the clan was because their population was low.

The rouge knew the elder Yautja didn't want to lead so much of what he wanted depended on what happened here. One-armed leader of a hunting group were rare; almost mythical. And even if the leader did find the strength to lead the group, he may choose to die after avenging himself on the automaton that injured him so grievously.

As the leader stirred, the rouge left without saying anything. The eldest Yautja took of the breathing apparatus so that he could speak clearly. _The prey…?_

_Still lives. Though one was taken_. 

_The artificial one…it wounded me_. He managed to lift his head and glance at where his arm should have been. Not seeing it there he fell back and stared at the ceiling, his mandibles clenching and unclenching as if chewing rocks.

_It still functions_, said his friend. _Will you rise and destroy it?_ It was a question meant to put a burr in the wounded Yautja's side and make him rise to the task.

Before he was to answer the young Yautja that had gone to check on his brother returned running. _My brother is gone! And damage underneath the ship reveals an opening to the chamber of the __Xenomorphs! Three of the eggs are missing!_

**ACT 2: **

"And that's all I have to say about that." He glanced around at the large underground cavern where everybody seemed to have something to do but him.

Somehow he had gotten lost, which seemed rather easy for him to do, but usually he was able to find his way back home again. He had been alone and wandering around for hours before he had finally found someone. Two people actually. The first man was wearing a black full length outfit. He also had a red laser eye patch and a number of tubes sticking out of his neck and diving back in other parts of his body. His left arm had also had a large machine thing over it. The second man had an even more dazed expression than his companion. He also had the same grayish skin tone with grey veins showing under the skin.

They hadn't introduced themselves but didn't seem to mind him following them, so he did. They had entered a tunnel in the side of a large hill and soon they had passed a number of similarly attired men, women, and strange reptile-like people with large eyes and crab claws. But no one had seemed to mind his presence there.

Finally, the two people he had been following had reached their destination and were joined by a female that was also clad in the dark clothing, tubing, and machinery. The two dark clothed ones had taken the clothing off the dazed grey man and laid him down on a metal surface that had a many lights and buttons.

He had found a place to sit on the side and watched some type of operation of the man. Seeing a wallet on the floor he had picked it up for safekeeping. He had flipped it open, and pulled out a credit card and driver's license. From the picture on the driver's license he saw that it belonged to the man on the table. The man on the cards read Darien Lambert. Then the credit card had beeped.

The woman working on Darien had turned to regard him and lifted up machined-like arm and waved it about him. He held up the driver's license and credit card in one hand and the wallet in the other. After a moments hesitation, the woman had reached over and took the credit card, and then handed it to one of the lizard men that were walking by. Then she returned to working on Darien. Having nothing else to do, he began to tell stories to them and they didn't object. He told of his life with his momma, his time in Vietnam, and his boat.

Finally, he stopped as he noticed someone approaching him. It was another dark clad woman but this one was different somehow.

"You are a stranger here," she said. "What is your name?"

"I'm Gump. Forrest Gump," he said, getting to his feet, while dusting off the cavern dirt off his backside.

She smiled. "And what brings you here?"

"I got lost."

"And now you are here. What do you think of this place?"

"It's a little creepy, but no one else seems to be complaining so I didn't think I should either."

"And what do you think we are doing there?"

Forrest thought about that for a second. "Well, at first I figured that they was making one of those science-fiction movies, but is seems to be more like one of those mobile hospitals we used in Vietnam with people sometimes having their arms and legs cut off."

She regarded him for a moment before nodding. "I believe I can see where you can come to those kinds of conclusions. I am the queen and these are my people." She turned to regard the entrance of the tunnels.

Three sets of drones carried three humanoid people of indeterminate gender into the cavern. Their forms seemed to flicker with bluish-purple energy lines of light the seemed to fade as grey veins seemed to spiderweb slowly through each body. Unlike Darien, these people or aliens seemed somewhat coherent, though scared and angry. One of them, who seemed to have more colors of red and gold in the lights that made up his form, reached out and grabbed one of the passing drones.

"You sjf tor a bzzrf! I atyt! I am Zo'or! Htfr srghu pain! Jostfg will sdf suffer!" shouted Zo'or.

The aliens could hardly move at all and seemed stuck mostly in random jerks that looked very painful. The three light creatures were carried past the Borg queen and Forrest deep into the caverns.

"They are new here as are we, and their energy forms are unstable. Two of their companions dissipated in an energy burst when we first introduced nano-probes to them," said the Borg queen to Forrest. "But as you can see the Borg adapt to overcome difficulties. These Taelons arrived in a small vessel that is being assimilated by other drones. It is a most curious technology. One which we will use to perfect and improve ourselves."

"What are you going to do to them?"

She had a sly smile that indicated that she was enjoying this rare conversation. "We are going to make them part of the Borg Collective so they can be like everyone else."

That puzzled Forrest. "I thought that was communism. I went to Vietnam and fought against that. That and a bunch of guys named Charlie and Cong."

She brushed a hand over the shaven head of Darien Lambert. "Different concept. When we assimilate people- their intelligences and memories – they are shared with everyone else in the Collective."

Forrest stared after a Sleestak drone that walked away after depositing necessary equipment to be used or added to Darrien. "Even people like that?"

"Yes, Forrest. There are over a thousand different races from different planets in the Collective."

"No segregation?"

"No. Everyone's equal in the Collective."

"Even those that don't think so well like me?"

"It doesn't work that way, Forrest. All the others would get from you is your memory and skills."

Forrest brightened. "I'm really good at ping pong! I represented the United States in a couple of ping pong matches against China. They said it was for world peace. It's one of the ways I got to fight for my country. I can also run really fast. That might be useful to you because I can see that most of your people seem to move really slow. But I expect that might be due to all the extra stuff they carry about their person."

The queen smiled. "That's not normally what we look for in potential drones. But right now our numbers are low and I would like to have you be one of us."

Forrest thought about it for a moment. "If it will make me smart, I guess it would be okay. Momma never said it but she always wanted me to be smart like the other kids. That ways she wouldn't have to worry about me so much.

The tubules extended from the Borg queen's wrist. "I don't think you will have anything further to worry about, Forrest." She sent the nano-probes into his system and held him as he convulsed. The talk had been a pleasant distraction, but she needed to increase the number of drones before she could consider leaving to take over Gallifrey. Forrest was just a necessary means to an end.

**ACT 3 – **

The sun was still overhead. For some reason it hadn't moved in hours causing some of the people and animals to grow concerned.

"You know I used to have such a problem with direct sunlight back in the day," commented Sam Dracula, who everybody just called Grandpa. "Couldn't go out in the stuff for the life of me."

Fester Frump put down his large battle-ax and wiped his hands mostly clean of the ichor. They had managed to find some of the large spiders that inhabited the area and had hacked them to pieces so that they could take them back for a side dish that evening's barbecue. "Gee, the dun doesn't seem to bother you at all now," said Fester. "What did you do?"

Grandpa smiled, his canines showing. He loved to brag about himself. "I invented a thousand strength sun block. Once it soaks into your skin, it stays there for the rest of your life keeping off the sun's rays."

"Say, something like that might help me keep my complexion! I always start to loose my pale looks when I've been outside too long on sunny days."

Grandpa nodded. "I have some with me in the medicine chest that I brought along. I'll get it out tonight for you. It's right next to the transmogrifying potion I've been working on." He paused to think about that. "Or it might be next to the shrinking formula." He through his hands up in frustration. "I've been having the hardest time keeping track of my potions since my son-in-law tried helping me out in the lab by washing all my test tubes and canisters which effectively wiped off what I had written what was contained inside!"

"He sounds very helpful!" said Fester, who was filling up a gunny sack with three-inch to foot long segments of spider legs. "I do hope you find that sun block. I can already start to feel the top of head starting to turn red."

"Oh, we can't let that happen to a handsome chap like you," said Grandpa. "Why, you probably have to drive the girls off with a stick."

Fester considered this. "Naw, usually they just get a restraining order against me. Would a stick help?"

Grandpa shrugged. "Some Romeos do their best work after the girl has had a knock on the head. But a fellow of your obvious charm shouldn't have to resort to that."

"Thanks!" gleamed Fester. "That means a lot coming from someone who has a great reputation as a lady killer."

Chuckling, Grandpa began filling his own sack with spider legs and other body parts.

"You know I was wondering something," said Fester, as he struggled to stuff a large leg into his sack. "How come everybody hears about your brother Vlad, but hardly anybody hears about you?"

Grandpa sighed. "Because Vlad hired himself a publicist, that Stoker fellow that wrote that stupid book. Got all the family facts wrong. I'm the eldest son. I was the first one turned into a vampire. But I didn't even know about the damn book until it was done and in print for the eighth printing. I was too busy running in intellectual circles with the likes of Nostradamus, Dr. Frankenstein, Dr. Moreau, Dr. Herbert West, Dr. Phibes, Dr. Totenkopf and Dr. Vornoff. Next thing I know everybody thinks my little whiny brother is the baddest, most dangerous person in the world. And do you know why they believe it's true? Because they read it!" He groaned. "The saddest part is that he took credit for a lot of the things I did when I was younger." He shook his head.

Fester nodded. "Yeah, I did a lot of crazy things when I was a kid, too. There was this time I was in-"

"Speaking of kids," interrupted Grandpa. He had heard some of Fester's childhood already and wasn't in the mood for a real horror story. "We should check on the youngsters."

He pulled out a large army surplus walkie talkie. "Eddie, can you hear me?" He waited a minute before repeating himself. "How are things going with you and the other two kids?" He waited another minute. "If we don't hear from you in the next minute we will come over there and track you down ending whatever fun you've managed to make for yourselves over there." He nodded to Fester. He knew kids and what really scared them.

There was a crackle on the radio and then Eddie could be heard. "Hey, Grandpa."

"Everything okay over there?" he asked.

"Yeah, everything's fine," Eddie said in a quest tone.

Grandpa shook his head and turned to Fester. "You hear that? Everything is fine."

Fester nodded with a grin.

"What do they take me for? An idiot? Kids never say everything is fine unless they are keeping something from you."

Fester looked puzzled and then nodded again.

Grandpa brought the walkie talkie back to his mouth and in a sweet voice asked, "What are you doing?"

Through the static on the walkie talkie he heard a muffled, "He's on to us!" There were some other voices discussing the matter in the background but there was nothing distinctive.

"Eddie?" He didn't want the boy to have too much time to think of a clever lie. After all the boy did take after his side of the family.

"Uh, we found an … old canister. We're trying to open it up to have a look at what's inside."

"Careful, Eddie!" The parental side of Grandpa reared itself up. "It might have something volatile inside!"

"Oh, it's volatile all right. But Wednesday has it blinded and Pugsley is going to use explosives to open it up. Don't worry. We will be at a safe distance."

In the background of the radio static Grandpa and Fester could hear a staccato voice cry out, "EX-TER-MIN-ATE! EX-TER-MIN-ATE! EX-TER-MIN-ATE!" repeatedly.

"Eddie, are you sure you don't want us to come over and supervise this effort of your?"

"Geez, Grandpa! Don't you trust us at all?"

He wasn't going to answer that one. "Just be careful, Eddie. Eddie?"

"Hang on, Grandpa." He began talking with someone else. "No. Sorry, mister. We don't know anyone named Sarah Connor. We haven't seen anyone else around here as a matter of fact.

Someone else was talking again, but all the background static and shouts of "EX-TER-MIN-ATE!" made it indiscernible.

"Hey, Grandpa, have you seen any strangers around here? Or heard of a lady named Sarah Connor?"

Fester and Grandpa exchanged looks, both shook their head. "Nope. Sorry, Eddie."

"Sorry, mister," they heard Eddie say.

"Eddie, who was that?"

"I don't really know," replied his grandson. "He just walked out of the trees. He's a big guy. All muscles and wearing a black leather jacket and is carrying a shotgun. Smells weird, though. He has a very metallic scent."

"I liked his eyes," they heard Wednesday say. "They were cold and emotionless. Yet he had this murderous aura of danger. And I don't think he had a soul."

"And now you'll never find out," said Pugsley teasingly. "It's not like he'd said he'd be back or anything." There was a brief altercation that could be heard over the radio.

"Come on!" shouted Eddie. "Let's blow this thing already!"

The fighting stopped, though a few moans could be heard from Pugsley, and then after a minute a large explosion could be seen near the river.

"Kids. What can you do with them?" said Grandpa.

"Well, you could try drowning them," said Fester. "But that usually just makes them more willing to act up. At least if did for me. Don't know why my parents keep trying it when it obviously wasn't working."

Grandpa sighed. This time more forlornly. The less he said about this the better, he thought to himself.

**ACT 4 – **

Bobby crawled carefully forward pushing his club ahead of him and dragging his horned helmet behind him. The reason for this was because the Sleestak, falling in large numbers to the invaders, had collapsed part of the tunnel network closest to where they were being attacked. That is to say they had mostly collapsed them.

When Enik arrived with unexpected aid, they had realized that while the tunnels were collapsed for a good fifty feet or more, there was a small crawl space at the top that may get some of their smaller members to the other side to spy out the enemy.

Dominar Rygel XVI had been sent first. Bobby the barbarian, second. Diana the Acrobat had tried following but couldn't get more than a few feet before almost getting stuck. Hank and Sheila had called for Bobby to come back but the boy barbarian refused and was slowly pressing on. Rygel was either too far ahead to hear the calls to return or just pretended not to have heard.

Bobby grunted as he moved another foot. Then he reached out and tightly griped his magic club, which gave off a slight glow that provided just enough light to see the next obstacle that he had to climb past. He steadied himself to move foreword when one of the rocks he was bracing himself on shifted.

"Sssssssssss!" Bobby managed to keep from yelling by blowing through his clenched teeth. Pulling his club close and gripping the handle he could see that he had scrapped his shin leaving it bloody.

"Phtt, that's not bad at all! I thought Human children were supposed to be more agile?"

Bobby glared at Rygel, tears sparkling at the corners of his eyes. "I suppose I'd be able to get around as well as you if I was the size of a fat frog. You don't even have to worry about weight because you are so full of helium!"

"How dare you! I am an emperor of over-"

"Deposed emperor, ya mean. And the way Chiana explains it most of your subjects never even noticed you being kicked off your throne."

"Bah! You would take the word of a thief?"

Bobby was getting steamed. "The way I hear it, thieving is your favorite pastime!"

"I told you. I am an emperor. I only appropriate things out of necessity to ensure my return to my throne."

Bobby started snickering. Rygel burst out laughing first and was soon followed by Bobby. "Let's get outta here," said Bobby. "Are we anywhere near the end of this cave-in?"

"Just a little ways forward. You should see some light if you go ahead a little more."

"What's it look like out there? See anyone?"

Rygel sat down on a flat rock as Bobby moved forward again. "Oh, every now and then someone walks by carrying something or other. They are all dressed the same. They all have the same machinery imbedded in their bodies. And they all have the same limb replaced with some type of prosthetic extension. But they all move around like they are all in the same cult or are hypnotized or something like that."

"Weird," Bobby grunted as he pressed forward. In fifteen minutes and two arguments later they had reached the end of the cramped space.

From their vantage point on top of the pile of rocks they could see that the tunnel they were in ended in a T, continuing to the left and the right. As they watched, two drones walked by. One was a male Human and the other was a Sleestak. Rygel and Bobby were quick to note the similar attire and equipment on each of them.

After they had past, Bobby scampered down the rocks the best he could, mildly struggling to get his horned helmet out of the cramped space, before standing on the flat tunnel floor.

Turning instinctively, Bobby raised his club as a young black female drone came upon him. Then Bobby noticed the zombie-like gate and the fact that her attention was not oriented on him. Taking a chance, he stepped out of the way and let her walk by.

"How did you know she wouldn't attack you?" asked the former Hynerian emperor, from where he had been hiding behind a large boulder.

"I didn't. At least not for sure." He glanced after the retreating form of the young drone. "She's gotta be about Sheila's age. Maybe younger."

"So what? She's the enemy!" snorted Rygel.

Bobby snarled at the Hynerian. "She's obviously under some type of control."

"And that means she won't try as hard to kill us? Is that your argument?"

"You know, Rygel. You can be a real pain."

Rygel chuckled. "You Humans do such interesting things with words. You are just like a younger version of Crichton."

They would have discussed the matter further but that was when they noticed two more shadowy forms coming down one of the tunnels toward them. The two people didn't notice either Bobby or Rygel until they were within a few feet of them because they were too busy arguing with each other.

"Just trust me! This is not New Pacifica! We are not even on G889!" said the young boy who looked to be about Bobby's age. He was skinny and seemed a little awkward on his feet.

"Look, just because the ground feels funny to you does not mean we are suddenly on another planet. You aren't a Terrian. You don't have the experience to tell such things. That receptacle thing somehow moved us to another part of the planet." She was tall, skinny and blonde. Bobby judged her to be about eleven years old.

"Well," said the other boy, "that thing did move us. And this place, whatever it is, is smaller. And there is no singing."

She rolled her eyes. "Uly, just because there are no local Terrians, that doesn't mean-" She broke off what she was going to say when she saw Bobby.

"Uh, hi." Bobby held out a hand in greeting.

"Oh," she said. "He must be another child of some of the previous convict settlers."

Bobby screwed up his face. "I'm a what?"

The other boy sighed and took Bobby's hand. "I'm Uly, it's short for Ulysses. This is True. She likes to be right. You are forewarned."

"How'd you guys get down here?" asked Bobby.

"She had us get in a-a rectangular thing," accused Uly.

"Call it a pylon," said True. "It means a type of gateway."

"Whatever. You insisted we go inside."

"I didn't make you!"

"You called me a chicken!"

"You still didn't have to!"

Bobby rolled his eyes. _These guys are worse than Eric_, he thought. "Okay! Okay! You got in the pylon thing. Then what happened?"

True spoke up. "It had this case on a pedestal right in the middle of the structure. It was filled with glowing stones all laid out. There were red ones, blue, yellow, gr-"

"It was larger on the inside than it was on the outside, too!" added Uly. Then he returned the glare True gave to him.

"Anyway," she said, "the whole thing lit up. I think Uly must have touched something."

"I did not!"

"Then what happened?" He was beginning to feel exasperated listening to these two, and he wasn't even sure what that was. He looked down to see what Rygel made of all this but the Hynerian was no where to be seen. _Figures._

"We were in this jungle," she said. "It was all green and beautiful. That was when we saw it. A giant lizard with large boney plates coming out of its back."

"A giant lizard? Do you mean a dinosaur or a dragon?" Bobby was rooting for a dinosaur. He'd seen enough dragons to last him a lifetime.

Uly grinned. "She doesn't know the name for it. It was a Stegosaurus. One of the Jurassic dinosaurs. They are the one's with the powerful dermal armature of plates along it's back and large bony spines in it's tail."

Bobby knew exactly which dinosaur that was. "Cool!"

"Yeah," admitted Uly, "But it was dead."

Bobby was taken aback. "What? You guys found a fossil?"

"No. It had been alive," explained Uly. "I mean, it was bleeding and it had these things eating it."

"What? More dinosaurs?"

True shivered. "No. They were horrible. They were round and about the size of a basketball. Their mouths seemed to be the biggest part of it. And teeth. Lots of little sharp teeth."

"Like a shark?" asked Bobby.

"More like a chain saw," Uly said.

True continued. "And they had these beady eyes. And there were these barb-like hairs all over their bodies like a – a"

"Porcupine?"

"Yeah, except these things could shoot the quills at you. And they did when one of them spotted us. Anyway, these porcupine-like creatures began rolling after us and firing their quills at us. Uly took my hand and … well, he pulled us to these tunnels."

They had left something out. Bobby was sure of that, but he decided not to call them on it. They had evidently been through a lot.

"So do you live down here?" Uly asked.

Bobby laughed. "Not hardly. I just arrived a little bit before you did. I just finished crawling through that caved in section over there."

"How long ago were your parents sent here from Earth," True asked.

"What? My parents are still back home on Earth. My friends and I are trying to find a way back."

True looked perplexed, but Uly intervened. "Would you just tell us how you got here before she makes up more scenarios in her head?"

"Uh, well, my sister and a few friends were at an amusement park and got on the Dungeons & Dragons ride – it's a roller coaster. All of a sudden everything – reality, I guess – kinda came undone or something. When we could stand again we found ourselves dressed like characters in the ride. We were attacked by Venger. Explaining about him would take too long. Anyway the Dungeon Master showed up and gave us each a magic weapon, so we-"

"Wait! A magic weapon?" She looked at him dubiously. Even Uly didn't seem to believe him.

"All right. I know. Seeing is believing." He turned to a large boulder that easily weighed more than any of them and raised his magic club, which glowed faintly. He swung. "Fore!"

The boulder was knocked down the tunnel bouncing against the side walls and finally hitting one of the three drones just turning the corner.

"Oh no!"

The two remaining drones began firing upon the three children. They turned to run down the tunnel the other way but they could see the red light from drone eyes coming from that direction.

"What do we do?" True shouted under the fire of Borg phasers. Bobby knew they wouldn't make it back by climbing through the small opening he had come through. They didn't have the time.

"Both of you, take my hand," said Uly.

"What?" asked Bobby.

"Trust him!" said True. "You can do this, right, Uly?"

"I have to," said the young boy. "Now run with me and don't stop!"

Before Bobby could protest or ask anything, they were running forward, straight at the side of the tunnel wall. Having had to do many unexplainable things since meeting the Dungeon Master, Bobby just did what he was told even when his eyes told him he was about to bounce off the hard wall. Except he didn't.

Rygel stared from where he hid up in the small cramped space. He couldn't believe his eyes. Somehow the three children had run right through the wall as if it were a mist or something. Seeing the approaching drones, Rygel made haste to escape. He'd have quite a report to give. He just hoped they believed him.

**AUTHOR'S NOTES**

_Hope nobody forgot about the Predators that had attacked Q2's team. Their leader had shot off Lore's arm, and Lore retaliated by shooting off their leader's arm. _

_Now about Forrest Gump, I just used him because he was someone – probably the only one - that could just sit down and talk with the Borg Queen. I had no real evil wish to harm him or anything like that. I promise._

**AUTHOR'S NOTES**

Hope nobody forgot about the Predators that had attacked Q2's team. Their leader had shot off Lore's arm, and Lore retaliated by shooting off their leader's arm. As for the Xenomorphs, most of you probably know them as the aliens in the movie ALIEN.

Now about Forrest Gump, I just used him because he was someone – probably the only one - that could just sit down and talk with the Borg Queen. I had no real evil wish to harm him or anything like that. I promise.

As for Darien Lambert – I've been trying to figure out how to use him for awhile. At least he wasn't turned into a stone statue like the ones that met Madam Medusa.

I used the Taelons to try show the diversity of those being dragged into the Land of the Lost. I know a number of people wanted me to use the characters from EARTH: FINAL CONFLICT as a major part of my story, but I just don't know the characters or plotline well enough. I'd do more damage than good.

ALIEN (1979)

Xenomorphs (or aliens) 3 to start with.

FORREST GUMP (1994)

Forrest Gump – (Tom Hanks)

Momma or Mrs. Gump – (Sally Field)

STAR TREK: VOYAGER (1995)

Borg Queen – (Susanna Thompson)

TIME TRAX (1993 – 1994)

Darien Lambert – (Dale Midkiff)

Selma – (Elizabeth Alexander)

EARTH: FINAL CONFLICT (1997 – 2002)

Zo'or – (Anita LaSelva)

Nostradamus

THE BRIDE – (Sting), or any other movie or book version you chose to use in your head.

Dr. Frankenstein

THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU (1996), or any other movie or book version you choose to use in your head

Dr. Moreau – (Marlon Brando)

RE-ANIMATOR (1985)

Dr. Herbert West – (Jeffrey Combs)

THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES (1971)

Dr. Phibes (Vincent Price)

SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW (2004)

Dr. Totenkopf – (Laurence Olivier)

BRIDE OF THE MONSTER (1955)

Dr. Vornoff – (Bela Lugosi)

THE TERMINATOR (1984)

The Terminator – (Arnold Schwarzenegger)

Sarah Connor – (Linda Hamilton)

EARTH 2 (1994 – 1995)

True Danziger – (J. Madison Wright)

Ulysses Adair – (Joey Zimmerman)

CRITTERS (1986)

Krites – unknown number of them.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7:

ACT 1 – WHO'S BAD

Frowning, the Master bit his thumb nail while he looked over the map that some of the Decepticons had created for him. It wasn't very detailed but it did give a general overlay of the landscape and areas that displayed unusual amounts of energy and technology were marked accordingly. Some were old and unlikely, but from the information provided by Q2, these Borg drones would seek out everything they could use before they moved on to their next goal- Gallifrey. Which was also his goal. Did Q2 know that? He wasn't sure but he wasn't about to go against someone of that caliber of power. Yet.

The evil time-lord had sent out a number of small groups to explore the land. Some long range, others short range, all with the orders to learn the landscape to gain field tactical advantages for the later conflicts that would occur as well as to learn what they could of the locals, gain weapons and learn the location of the Borg. They were under precise orders not to engage the Borg but to bring back what ever information they could. He almost wished he hadn't sent so many teams out but some of them needed to get out and think about their situation before coming back. They needed to accept the fact that they were truly under his thumb. Plus, he wanted a break from that damn annoying Dalek.

This small microverse was proving to be a harsh crucible. As some of the teams returning from their scouting trips he had learned that they had lost some of their weaker members. Shredder had lost a number of his Foot ninjas in a bizarre encounter he didn't want to talk about. Three members of the Legion of Doom, Gorilla Grodd, Sinestro, and the Scarecrow, who he had expected to return first, did not return and did not respond to any calls made to them. Skywarp, of the Decepticons, damaged one of his wings when a pterodactyl had attacked him causing him to crash into an unyielding pylon on the ground. Cobra Commander had lost two of his soldiers to some creature with tentacles that pulled them underground. The collection of alien villains that he had rescued from Space Ghost's prison planet, had split into three groups, all three of which were late. As for the Cybermen, they had retuned without the shrill sounding Dalek, but the Master had no complaints about that.

General Traag, an orange silicon lifeform from Dimension X, proved to be the most reliable in organizing the groups that had remained behind and put them through their paces. He also seemed the most willing to work under the Master much to the disdain of the others. This being the case, he was made the Master's second in command

Starscream was still preening over himself as his group of Decepticons had been the first group to return after accomplishing their scouting assignment. However, it was proving so annoying that the Master was beginning to regret that after destroying Megatron that he had placed Starscream as head of the Decepticons. But he could modify that later if he needed to. Soundwave seemed to be a better leader for the team anyway. The, ironically quiet Decepticon, followed orders to the letter without a lot of complaints.

Scrapper and Scavenger of the Constructicons had built a large flat stone table out of some large boulders that had been nearby. The map was surrounded by a number of the leaders he had brought to this land - Brainiac, Lex Luthor, Krang, Cobra Commander, Skelator and Soundwave.

"There should have been some type of evidence of their activity," Krang commented from where he sat in his human-shaped exo-suit, his pink tentacle-like arms twitching in frustration.

"Not necessarily," said Skelator. "Underneath all this is a tunnel network that would provide the Borg with the capability of going anywhere they want without being disturbed. I've been in contact with my fighters that you sent out scouting, and upon learning of the tunnels, I had half of them go down to explore." He pointed a bony finger at a point on the map.

The Master raised an eyebrow. "In the future, Skelator, consult with me before rerouting my scout troops."

The skeletal visage managed a frown as he clenched his fist. But Skelator managed to contain his rage. He wasn't suicidal. He was very determined to survive this and turn the tables on this so-called Master. "Very well," he managed to say, before adding the final indignity, "Master."

Lex frowned, but Brainiac, being an android, unemotionally moved to the next subject. "There are a few old derelict space faring vessels, some that indicate some recent residual energy." The green skinned android pointed out the spots on the map that he was referring to. "One of these may prove to be the work of the Borg."

"Or," added Luthor, "since the Borg seek out new technology and resources, the Borg may head to one of these spots."

"It's not necessary to speculate on where a something may or may not show up when you know where it's lair is," came a voice from the jungle. Zartan and his Dreadnoks came out of the jungle, past the startled Foot guards that Shredder had set up.

"Ah, Zartan!" exclaimed Cobra Commander, who everybody could tell was smiling behind his metal mask. "I take it you have good news for us."

Zartan said nothing as he approached the stone table. He caught the eyes of the Master before glancing down at the map. "We found your Borg friends. They are right about here." He placed a coin on a place on the map. "They are going in and out tunnels at this point and also about a kilometer down this point." He laid down a second coin.

"I told you my men were the best!" exclaimed Cobra Commander who patted the annoyed Zartan on the back.

"Excellent!" The Master turned at once to call over to Starscream. "Starscream, has Skywarp been repaired yet?"

Starscream seemed startled but quickly answered. "Almost, …Master."

"Then you will have to leave without him. Take Thundercracker, Buzzsaw and Laserbeak. Go scout this location," he pointed to the map, "from a discreet distance. Do not engage the Borg or anyone else in this area. Come back and report. You leave immediately. Is that clear?"

Starscream, not liking taking orders from a Human, liked it even less when they talked to him like he was an idiot. "I understand." He turned and went to get the others. He hadn't said Master that time. He was to busy thinking of ways to torture the upstart once he got a chance.

Meanwhile, the Master had other plans he needed to put in motion. After all, he was a time-lord, and he knew when time was a crucial.

ACT 2 – THE PIT OF DISPAIR

Mer-Man shook his head trying to clear it of the dark cobwebs. It was only then that he realized that he was somewhere in the dark and the cobweb-like material held him to the side of the tunnels that he had been exploring with some of his fellow followers of Skeletor. "What…has happened?"

"An ambush," came a response. Mer-Man recognized it as belonging to Whiplash, another of Skeletor's fighters, one who could use his long lizard-like tail to strike an enemy or smash rocks. It took him a few moments to crane his neck around to see the lizard-man strung up in the same sticky substance a few yards from him. He could also see Spikor and the two-headed Two-Bad as well.

"So we were all captured." It wasn't a question. Only four of them had been sent down to explore the tunnels by Evil-Lyn for signs of the Borg. Evidently something else had found them instead. The air was moist but he felt dry. He always felt dry when he wasn't in his natural element – the water. And the longer he was away from the water, the weaker he would become. "Can you use your tail to free yourself?"

"I've tried. There is some give. But our guard doesn't like it," said Whiplash, casting a look to the shadows. "I suspect they'd kill me before I can free my tail."

Mer-Man's large bulbous eyes were used to the shadowy deeps of the oceans of Eternia. Still, he almost missed the still sentry perched on a shelf on the wall. He suspected that it was taller when it was stretched out but he wasn't worried about that right now. From his muddled memories, he was able to piece together that there had been two of them originally. This one bore the marks of Mer-Man's claws across it's face. The other one had been stabbed, perhaps fatally, by Spikor's trident-hand.

"Any ideas?" asked the very panicked blue side of Two-Bad. Two-Bad was a genetic mutant who had been born with two heads but only one body. Perhaps to differentiate them for some reason the left head and side of their body was purple while the right side of their body and head were blue. If the heads had individual names, Mer-Man had never bothered to learn them and he didn't care to now. The purple head of Two-Bad hung low and unconscious. Probably not something the blue head was used to.

"I need to know more," the aquatic villain said. He tried using his telepathy to call for any type of water creature but didn't receive anything useful back.

"There's the sentry," Two Bad said.

"I already told him that!" snapped Whiplash.

"Is there just one sentry guarding us?" asked Mer-Man.

"No," answered Whiplash.

"How many more have you seen?"

"No, you misunderstand." Whiplash looked down at the tunnel floor. "The sentry also protects the eggs. The thing that laid them is a larger version of that sentry creature. She pulled herself back down the tunnel laying more eggs as she went."

Along the floor were over a dozen eggs, though a few seemed to have already opened.

Mer-Man looked at the webbing holding him again. "So this is more like a cocoon to hold us until the hatchlings come out to eat us."

"I think not," said Whiplash.

"Why not?"

"I was awake when two of them opened up."

"Ohmanohmanohmanohman!" Two-Bad's right head ranted.

"Two hatchlings came out and sprang onto the heads of Spikor and Two-Bad's left side. After about an hour the hatchling fell off and died."

"So we are incompatible foodstuff for them, right?" asked Mer-Man, who was hoping to hear something that he'd like. Perhaps they would be permitted to leave once they freed themselves.

"I think not," repeated Whiplash. "Can you see the body below you?"

Mer-Man strained against the webbing and he could hear a hiss coming from the sentry. Whiplash was right; it didn't like them messing with the webbing. Despite the webbing material painfully pulling on the two fins on either side of his head, he did manage to see the body below him encased in the same cocoon material. It looked like a lizard-like humanoid, different than the stock that Whiplash came from. And it had had large, dark eyes. But the most noticeable thing was that it's chest cavity had been torn open – from the inside.

"I'm not understanding. What happened to him?"

"I think one of those hatchlings put something in them," explained Whiplash. "Something that grew or incubated inside them, before-"

"Ohmanohmanohmanohman!" bemoaned the right head of Two-Bad.

Mer-Man shook his head again. "So, it's better that we leave sooner than later."

Just then, one of the Xenomorph eggs began opening like a flower. A long legged crab-like thing slowly crawled out and seemed to examine the tunnel walls.

"Ohmanohmanohmanohman!"

The facehugger leapt up and landed on Two-Bad's right head; it's tail coiling around his neck. It planted itself on his protesting face and then became still. Slowly the facehugger began to withdrawal itself. Two-Bad coughed as he began to convulse slightly.

"I thought you said it stayed on for an hour?" whispered Mer-Man.

"I think-I think it sensed the already incubating creature in Two-Bad's body."

The aquatic servant of Skeletor didn't like the possibilities that presented. "Which means what exactly?"

For an answer, the facehugger launched itself straight at him. Mer-Man managed to find a reserve of strength to free one of his arms and grab it with his webbed hand. But even so it had already wrapped its tail around its neck and was choking the life out of him for not complying with its need. He could also sense that the sentry was coming. Not that it mattered as Mer-Man's perception seemed to grow dark and cold even as he felt something start to move down his throat.

ACT 3 – CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?

Cha-Ka and Alf slowly pulled back some of the large palm leaves in order to discreetly look out at the battle raging a couple of dozen yards away. Will Robinson popped his head between theirs and his jaw fell in amazement. The robot hung just behind them.

"What? What do you see?" whispered Dr. Zachary Smith, who waited a ways behind them and peeked at them from behind a large tree.

"Fight," said Cha-Ka.

"I know that, you blithering hairball!" he hissed. "I meant who is fighting who and why?"

"Hey, Smith, why don't you go out there and take a census? You could find out a lot more answers that way," retorted Alf. He had taken a liking to Cha-Ka and was feeling protective.

"I've never seen them before," said Will.

That wasn't enough for the good doctor. "Are they Human? Are they alien? Are they robots? Or something else all together?" snapped Dr. Smith.

Alf glanced out at the battle again. "Let's see. Yes. Yes. Yes. And I thing that molten guy out there counts in the something else category so Yes, for the fourth question, too."

"What?" Curiosity getting the best of him, the older man came over and yanked a palm branch out of his way. "Oh dear. This does not bode well for us; not well at all."

The four individuals under attack appeared to be three Humans and a humanoid robot that were defending themselves with bazooka-like weapons that fired balls of explosive energy. They currently were entrenched in an old RV vehicle that was partially buried in the ground and even had a few large roots wrapped around it.

Attacking them were an odd assortment of creatures. The most bizarre looking one was a tall, but hunched over, insect-like alien that resembled a preying mantis but with a beak instead of mandibles. It was green with purple markings. It had four arms – two with pinchers and two with hands.

Another insect-like attacker was shorter and had wings. He had large antenna, large bug eyes and a beaked mouth. He mostly swooped down on the others in an effort to keep them distracted.

An old pale woman who appeared to be Human was alternating between firing a blaster and a projectile weapon that fired large sticky webs.

There were two cat-like humanoids that appeared to be trying to get close enough to pounce on one of the trapped people but currently couldn't get close enough without getting hurt right now.

The robot attacker was almost seven feet tall and grayish-silver in color. It didn't seem to be made for maneuverability but it did seem to be using the most intimidating weapon. Mostly he seemed to use it to ensure that the trapped people did not escape.

The most bizarre attacker appeared to be molten humanoid inside a metal suit that had been tore open in several places though the hood still remained.

Only two of the attackers appeared to be down. A large man wearing a helmet that looked like a large bucket over his head. Due to the amount of blood covering the ground underneath him they correctly assumed him to be dead. The next body was a few yards away and had been mostly cut in half by whatever it had been hit with, leaving an intact large green head that had evidently been previously attached to a somewhat smaller body, while leaking yellowish-green blood all around.

"We should help," Will said.

Dr. Smith was aghast. "Help? We can't even be sure who will be on the willing side. Sure the attackers have seven against four but those bazooka weapons are more than enough to even the odds."

Alf patted him on the arm. "I think you were supposed to say something along the lines of 'we don't know who is on the right side', right?"

Dr. Smith was adamant. "In places of lawlessness might makes right. Besides even if we took what you said into consideration, how would we be able to tell who is in the right and who is in the wrong?"

A shout rose up from one of the attacking being- the large preying mantis. "Hurry! Click. Keep at least two of them alive for interrogation! Click. If they know something useful, the Master may give us more worlds to rule! Click. More races to enslave or exterminate at our whim!"

"Bad!" Cha-Ka said, scowling.

Alf scratched his chin. "I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I believe that the attackers are the bad guys."

"Be that as it may," responded Dr. Smith. "It is not us they are attacking. And I feel I should point out that we have no weapons to use against them."

"Oh, I don't know about that," said Alf as he pulled out a knife and fork from somewhere. "I think I can take one of those cat guys."

Suddenly, a man broke through the woods running as fast as he could. He ran like the hounds of hell were after him, but when they looked what they saw was…

"I think he has issues," said Alf. "I mean, to be afraid of…that? How could that hurt him?"

"But it appear to be actually chasing him," pointed out Will.

"Oh dear," mumbled Dr. Smith who had realized before the others that the running man was headed toward the attackers.

"Pardon me!" shouted the man as he barged past the pale woman.

"What?" exclaimed the Spider-Woman, her webbing having somehow missed the annoying man with the H on his forehead yet again. She turned to look at the newcomer but he just kept running.

"Are you going to let everybody get by you, Spider-Woman?" teased Brak. "Hey, what's that coming after him?" Above them Lokar laughed as he flew above them.

Instead of shooting the running man, or Brak, she turned to see a large whitish-pink balloon-like sphere that had to be about seven or eight feet wide rolling at her at a fast pace. Instinctively, she raised her blaster and fired it at the oncoming balloon.

The sphere stopped dead in its tracks and seemed to vibrate momentarily from the blast before it exploded, causing the old Spider-Woman to be knocked back a couple dozen feet into unconsciousness. Lokar, who had been flying overhead, had also been knocked out of the sky, and toward the jungle.

A young brown haired woman jumped out of the jungle on the far end and after a brief sprint, attacked the large mantis creature, Zorak. His matter intensifier gun was knocked away where it disappeared in a small explosion even as they began exchanging blows.

The men that had been seeking refuge in the old RV decided to push back just then. The humanoid robot moved to confront the larger robot on the bad guys' side. Words were obviously exchanged between them. When his bazooka-like weapon failed to fire, the more humanoid one of them moved forward to strike the more imposing robot who didn't even bother to raise it's neutron ray. Than it retaliated by raising it's own fist and struck the first robot in the head. It popped off and it's body sparked briefly before falling to the ground.

"Gosh!" said Will. "I wonder what they said?"

"You're ears are not sensitive enough for that kind of language," responded the Robinson's robot as it began to move forward through the palm branches. "But it was language that not even a robot service pit crew would use."

"Wait! What are you…?" Dr. Smith's questions were left hanging as they were left behind. "You bubble-headed booby!"

Sensing the robot's approach, Mettalus, the large evil robot turned to regard this possible new threat. "What is your purpose?"

"To serve and protect mankind," stated the Jupiter II robot.

"Bah, you are no better that that Series 4000 mechanoid I beheaded." He raised his neutron ray.

"You don't know the B9 model." The robot extended his arms and arcs of electricity shot out, striking the genicidal robot.

Mettalus shook as the strikes of energy hit him, and then began to laugh. Before the evil robot could respond in kind, a blast from behind struck it, effectively decapitating it.

"Yeah! That's what you get for hurting my mate!" Lister shouted, as he lowered his bazookoid. He reached down and picked up the head of his robot friend. "Kryten, you okay, man?"

"Fine sir. Though I do seem to be having one of those out of body experiences."

Lister shook his head. "Kryten, that other odd job knocked your block off. Your body's back there." Lister turned Kryten to where his body was trying to screw the decapitated head of Space Ghost foe known as the Schemer into the place where Kryten's head was supposed to be.

"By the Maker! Put down that head down!" shouted Kryten shouted at his body. "It's not capatible with our system! You're getting foreign organic matter into our chest cavity!"

Lister handed Kryten's head to his body. "Put it back on," he instructed the body. Then he turned to the Jupiter II's robot. "Thanks. We really needed a hand just then." He glanced back at the battle still going on. The brown haired lady was still going strong against Zorak. The Cat had engaged one of the cat creatures, while the other one was being attacked by a short furry alien with a long snout, but it was the weapons that it was using that caught his attention. "Oi, is that short fellow attacking the cat creature with a knife and fork?"

"He is called Alf. He joined our party earlier today," said the robot. "And he has commented on, to paraphrase, 'a hankering for feline cuisine,'"

"He's going to eat him because he's a cat creature?" Lister's eye's widened.

"Possibly."

"Smeg! I'd better get over there!"

Arnold Rimmer was trapped by the Moltar the lava creature. It taunted him as it drew near. Rimmer knew that he could resort to being a soft-light hologram instead or a hard-light hologram, but that would put the Light bee that generated his image at greater risk. While in the hard-light form he was close to indestructible, the heat generated by this molten monster was most likely enough to destroy the Light bee and thus again destroy him.

"The others can take prisoners if they want," said Moltar. "I prefer burning them to a crisp."

Rimmer backed up into a corner.

A clay ball hit and struck Moltar on the back of his suit. "What?" He turned to see the Paku Cha-Ka running away. He didn't see the three glowing crystals – red, blue and yellow - stuck in the clay on his back. Suddenly a massive electrical shock came from the three crystals, causing the lava man to be thrown forward. Hurting, he hurried away into the jungle, leaving a smoldering trail of burnt plants in his wake.

Brak and his brother Sisto, seeing the advantages swinging to the other team, turned and ran, abandoning their opponents. Zorak, almost gaining the advantage over his Human female opponent, had to leap away into the trees as Lister tried shooting him with his bazookoid.

After everybody began dusting themselves off, introductions started.

"So," said Lister, "what's a lady with your moves doing running around the woods?"

She gave half a laugh. "Is that how you introduce yourself to all the ladies? With a poor line like that?"

"Naw, usually I'd just offer to by them a lager and hope all they want to eat is stale pretzels," he responded.

The Cat looked peeved. "Hey, monkey-boy. Back off. I saw the lady first." He spun around and approached her. "And as for your moves, take it from a professional, they were f-i-i-i-n-n-e." He started to purr.

"Hello, my dear. I am Arnold Rimmer. The highest ranking officer of the starship RED DWARF," he began, sticking out his chest.

"Rimmer, you're only the Second Technician. That's the second-lowest class on the entire ship," butted in Lister

"Well, with everyone else dead on the ship and you being the Third Technician that makes me the highest ranking person on the ship, you git!" His nostrils flared menacingly. "Now I'm pulling rank so smeg off!" He turned to address the young woman again with a smile.

"Rimmer," Lister said quietly. "Alien."

"What! Where?" Lister pointed to Alf who was trying to skin the tail that he had taken off of Brak. Rimmer, starting to hyperventilate, hurried over to finally have solid proof of the existence of aliens, not counting the ones they had just fought off.

"Well, that takes care of Field Goal Head," said the Cat referring to H emblem on Rimmer's forehead. "So why don't you tell us your name, kitten?" He flashed his large feline incisors.

"Uh, I'm Max. Max Guevera. Not sure how I got here. I was trying to outrun a rape gang in the soggier side of Seattle when-"

"Rape gang?" repeated a wide-eyed Will as he approached with Cha-Ka.

Everyone looked awkward, but Max managed to say something. "Let's just say that not everyplace is nice and some places have more than their share of bad people making things worse for others." She moved on before Will could ask anything else. She had seen the sheltered look in his eyes and did not want to be the one to explain any more of the harsh realities of the world with him. "Anyway, I ducked into this odd looking doorway which closed behind me and then I was in this room with a display tray of large crystals that glowed."

"Hey! We were in something like that, too!" exclaimed Will.

"Us, too," said Lister. "Lights started flaring and next thing you know the bloody door reappears and you are walking into Nightmare in Wonderland, right?"

"Something like that," she said with a smile. "So where on Earth are we?"

Will looked awkwardly at Lister. "I don't think we are on Earth. At least, I didn't start out on Earth."

"Us either," admitted Lister. "Whatever it is that brought us here most likely picked us up from different time periods and possibly alternate realities, too."

"Now I'm serious," said the Cat, stepping in front of Max. "You guys gotta go find your own ladies, because she has just found the star of her love life." He angrily hissed at the others.

"Cat!" Lister looked stern and just a little embaressed.

Max was a little taken aback by the behavior. "Why is his name Cat?"

"Well, you see, because he's the descendant of my pregnant cat, Frankenstein. She had a litter in the bowels of our ship, the Red Dwarf. And to make a long story short-"

"Too late, monkey boy," said the Cat, looking bored. "You like my lapels?" He twirled around for Max and let out a soft cat howl.

"-I was placed in suspended animation, a radiation leak killed the crew, three million years later I'm let out by the ship's computer and meet him. Been taking care of him, too. Feel responsible since the rest of people up and left him before I got out." He was playing on her heartstrings hoping to spark anything. "I'm Lister by the way." He flashed his own smile at her.

"You take care of me? You can't even dress yourself properly! If it wasn't for Kryten you wouldn't even ever have clean clothes! Such as they are!" snapped the Cat. Will smirked after taking a look at Lister's clothes which showed food stains from the last week. Cha-Ka grinned too, but he didn't know what they were laughing at.

"Wait! Wait! Wait! He's evolutions answer to what a cat will be in the future?" asked Will in disbelief.

Lister looked Cat up and down who spun around for effect. "Yeah, I suppose you could call him that. Though all the inbreeding left him a little soft in the melon."

"Don't listen to him, baby. He jealous of the real deal that is me." Cat leaned close to her. "And tonight this deal could be yours." He gave her his best incisor smile again.

"No deal." She pushed him back, and turned to the others. "I think I know what he's reacting to." She sighed, "I'm transgenic."

Lister took a step back. "What? You were a guy? No way?"

"That's transgender," pointed out Will. "A transgenic is someone or something that has had its DNA combined with the DNA of different species."

"I have feline DNA."

"I'll say you do," said the Cat as he rubbed his shoulder against hers, purring.

"It was part of a military operation to create super-soldiers." She let out a sigh. "I don't suppose you could call him off?"

Lister raised his hands in a hopeless gesture. "I've been trying. But I think you are the first female that he been around since he's reached puberty that smells anything like his kind."

"How about having him fixed?" She snarled at the Cat who briefly leapt away.

"Ark! Ark!" cried Cha-Ka, who had evidently moved over to where the robot of the Jupiter II and Kryten were examining the inside of the half buried RV. Dr. Smith was there as well looking on with interest.

Will choose to leave the adults to their possibly grown-up conversation though he wasn't sure it could be called that since it wasn't exactly being conducted in a grownup manner. "What is it, Cha-Ka?"

"Ark, Will! Ark!" The young Paku jumped up and down as he pointed to the RV, which would have looked larger if it wasn't half buried in dirt and overgrown with vegetation.

"Robot, what can you tell me about this vehicle?"

"Analysis is sketchy at best. This vehicle was built to travel over rough terrain. Visual evidence indicates that there was a small laboratory on board. The name painted on the side of the vehicle is Ark II."

"Well, well, another possible puzzle piece. Will it be something useful or just another roadblock?" Dr. Smith twiddled his thumbs as Kryten cleared more of the vegetation out of the way.

"Before we were attacked," Kryten began. "I had managed to restore power to the computers on board. They are very primitive and I'm afraid most of the data they contained has been damaged. But I did learn that it had been used by a team to rebuild civilization back on Earth after some catastrophe."

"Ark!" exclaimed Cha-Ka. "Ark cora apakuni!" He pointed at the RV again. "Ark save everyone! Old story! Much old!"

"The soil sediment would indicate that it was washed here in a flood," said the robot. "Possible a thousand to two thousand years ago."

"Excuse me," said a polite British male voice. "But could someone please tell me what is going on?"

"Oh, dear," said Dr. Smith, and took a step back.

Will, seeing the blood on the man's forehead, pulled a clean cloth out of his pocket and hurried over. "Sit down, mister, and we'll have a look at your forehead."

The man did, literally, on the ground, with Will's help.

"All I remember is running from Rover, whatever that is, and then flying through the air."

Will applied the cloth carefully to the man's forehead." What's your name, mister?"

"Uh, my name? Number Six, I think." He paused and shook his head. "No, that can't be right. I don't think I know what it is."

"Curiousier and curiousier," commented Dr. Smith, with an air of annoyance.

**AUTHOR'S NOTES**

_Okay, people. I've been under a lot of medication lately so if things are a little off I'm blaming it on that. Next time I post will include the current happenings of Q2's team. Also the Predators attack another group. Fun!_

_Okay, in ACT 1 I was trying to give everyone a feel for what's going on with the Master and hint at a few things. Besides, I wanted to show everybody that I had not forgotten him._

_In ACT 2, some of Skeletor's exploration team found more than they meant to. It also builds on the looming Alien threat. Makes it all that harder to predict what will happen next._

_As for ACT 3, I'm just using the RV as a reference point, as when as to build a little background history for the Land of the Lost. I used the Space Ghost villains because many of them had been brought back in the Space Ghost Coast to Coast series so they are no longer as obscure as they used to be. I remember them from the re-runs in the 70's._

_As for the Red Dwarf crew, I've been trying to figure out a way to use them for ages. Loved the show and would love to have it start again. If you haven't seen RED DWARF, then I really recommend it. It's a British Sci-Fi comedy and is rather witty, sometimes in a crude way, but funny. I wish I owned the entire series._

_I brought in Max reluctantly, but I am glad I did. _

**ARK II (1976 – 1979)**

Summary - After Earth has been devastated by years of pollution and nuclear war, a group of scientists send out a team of young people as well as an intelligent chimpanzee to seek out the surviving pockets of human beings in order to help rebuild civilization. They traveled in a futuristic six-wheeled combination RV and mobile laboratory. Also, as they meet these people they take time to teach them valuable life lessons along the way.

**THE PRISONER (1967 – 1968)**

Number Six – (Patrick McGoohan)

Rover

**RED DWARF (1988 – 1999)**

Dave Lister – (Craig Charles)

The Cat – (Danny John-Jules)

Arnold Judas Rimmer – (Chris Barrie)

Kryten – (Robert Llewellyn)

**DARK ANGEL (2000 – 2002)**

Max Guevera – (Jessica Alba)


	8. Chapter 8

**Part 8: WHEN IN DOUBT…ATTACK!**

**ACT 1 – APPETITE OF DESTRUCTION **

Clicking angrily in anger as well as pain, Zorak spied from his hiding spot as the interlopers who had defeated him and his forces made friends with the ones that he had tried to kill or capture. And that Human female – she had fought with a ferocity that one didn't find in that species. He examined one of his pincers that she had managed to tear half off. One of his knee joints had also been seriously damaged.

"Sulking in defeat, are you?"

Zorak glanced up at Lokar who was climbing down from the upper branches of the trees where he had evidently been knocked to when the balloon creature had exploded.

"You weren't much _click_ help," commented Zorak.

"What! I distracted them from above! And I told the others how to attack! That is what I am good at! After all, am I not king of the Killer Locusts?"

Zorak clicked in annoyance as the smaller alien insectoid jumped to the ground beside him. "Your wings _click_ are damaged."

Lokar moved his thin damaged wings behind him in annoyance. "Of course they are damaged! It happened in that explosion! That large balloon the Spider-Woman blew up! Why else would I be climbing down the tree instead of being halfway back to the Master fellow with the others?"

Zorak looked around. Lokar was right. They were alone.

"Now I will have to wait till I get back to my people before I can have new wings transplanted onto my back." He reached back and examined the damage. "They will have to be from a strong, athletic Locust. I want to be able to fly fast."

"Do not _click_ worry yourself about it."

Lokar turned to the large alien mantis. "What do you-"

The large mantis-like alien lunged and pinned the royal Locust to the ground. "I mean, since you _click_ are of no use to us as a fighter, you can _click_ at least provide me with the nutrients _click click_ I need to heal myself."

Before Lokar, king of the killer locusts, could protest this or cry out for help, Zorak bit his head off. Then, making sure to miss a morsel, the leader of the Zorathians began to feed in earnest.

**ACT 2: THE ENEMY OF MY EMEMY IS…MY ENEMY?**

Zuckuss was distressed. He had been pacing as they waited for 4-LOM to return. While the others considered 4-LOM to just be a droid, to Zuckuss 4-LOM was a trustworthy partner. He turned to the others. "We should go back."

Bossk growled irritably. He was bare-chested and leaning against a tree while he sat. He had just finished closing the knife wound in his stomach that he had received while fighting with General Martok. He glanced down at the Klingon knife that was still coated with his blood. He had been mentally imagining flaying the Klingon alive with that blade when he caught up with him later. Now the ammonia-breathing Gand had interrupted his pleasant thoughts. How had it all gone so badly? They were all trained bounty-hunters.

And then there had been that call from smug Boba Fett. He spat. One of his teeth flew out and stuck into the side of a leaf. Fett's call had literally left a bad taste in his mouth. He sheathed the blade.

"If we go back we should reunite with Boba Fett," Dengar said. "He is our best option at this point."

"Have you no pride!" shouted the Trandoshan bounty hunter. "Have you no desire to prove yourself better than that pompous tin-plated showoff?"

Dengar just looked at him. Bossk had no way of knowing that most of Dengar's emotions had been removed after suffering a tragic accident during a swoop race, which resulted in him becoming a cyborg. "The job needs to be done."

"We should go back," Zuckuss repeated. "With Boba Fett, or without him, we need to go back."

Bossk glared first at Dengar and then Zuckuss. Finally he turned painfully to the assassin droid, IG-88. "And what do you say, IG-88?"

The assassin droid's optic sensors turned to focus on him. "System's are at 77.268 percent operational. Optimal chance of success would occur when this unit is fully operational."

"And how long will that take?" snapped Bossk.

"3.11 hours, disregarding anything unforeseen." IG-88 adjusted its optic sensors again. "Warning! Warning!"

The droid moved back from the others as it raised one of it's weapons and fired repeatedly into the treetops. The results were something that seemed somewhat blurred falling through the branches and landing on the hard ground.

The Yautja was still as the camouflage cloak began to dissipate from around him.

The bounty hunters all leapt for cover. Zuckuss leapt behind a boulder as a large explosion occurred where he had been standing just a few minutes before sending dirt and leaves everywhere. The Gand bounty hunter hurried toward the trees where he could hide. Explosion erupted in front of him and he turned around. There before him a large formative formed seemed to slowly crackle into view. "Have you no pride!" came Bossk's slightly distorted voice.

Zuckuss raised his weapon but the alien had already fired something. A net that had been fired at him picked him up and imbedded itself into a large tree behind him leaving him there like a fly under a flyswatter…only he was alive. The Gand tried to reach for a knife to cut the tight cords of the net, but before he could he felt it constricting into his flesh. Terror began to fill his mind when his ammonia breathing apparatus was cut open by the net and oxygen flooded in burning his lungs. His last sight was of the cruel rouge hunter stepping forward with a spear and running him through with it.

Dengar dived and rolled as a volley of plasma energy exploded the earth and trees around him. Seeing the source of the fire coming from above, he took a shot the missed the unseen shooter but breaking off the branch that he had been standing on. A blurred camouflaged image of something large jumped to another branch and then another as Dengar continued firing at it.

Sensing something, the cyborg ducked as something sharp past where his head had been. Looking down, he saw the tip of his weapon fall to his feet. It had been effortlessly cut off. Unsure whether it was safe to use the plasma rifle, he tossed it aside in favor of one of his pistols. Then he noticed a rustling of the brush as the sharp object returned toward him.

He fired twice. The second time hit the sharp object and it spun off out of control before flying into the earth.

Sensing someone on his left he turned to shot but was hit with incredible force. He flew back and hit the trunk of a tree. He stumbled to his feet as he tried to breathe. This time his attacker came into view as it's cloaking device was disengaged. Another of the fast, sharp objects was fired. This time Dengar had a strange view of falling to the ground and bouncing, and then slowly watching his headless body fall down next to him before everything grew dim.

Bossk ran into the wind trusting in his nostrils and ears to tell him what his eyes could not. And then he caught the scent. It was moving to flank him. _Let it_, he thought. He didn't like running from anything. Just as he came around a massive tree he fired repeatedly at the area to his left. The electrical camouflage of the young hunter fizzled as he fell, rolling down the bank and almost into the river. Wounded or dead, Bossk had no time to check as another assailant revealed itself. This one had an arm missing at a stump. It looked recent, too. It fired from a weapon on it's shoulder, striking Bossk's weapon, effectively destroying it. Bossk threw the hot metal down at his feet in disgust and anger.

Bossk growled deep in his throat. He didn't know what these creatures' problems were and he didn't care. "Well…?"

Instead of speaking, it was Dengar's voice that came to him. "The job needs to be done." It was a recording from what the bounty hunters had been saying to each other just a few moments prior, but he didn't have time to dwell on that as his new assailant flexed his remaining arm – the right one – causing retractable twin blades to spring out of the gauntlet that he wore.

"Hand to hand knife fighting? I can go with that." He pulled out the Klingon blade with one hand and one of his regular one for the other hand. They began to slowly circle each other.

Finally, Bossk had had enough and charged. They stabbed and slugged each other with repeated blows – each of which would have been enough to kill an ordinary foe. They fell back over the riverbanks and into the swift current. Still they cut at each other. Bossk, seeking a weakness, smashed off the mask the hunting, hoping the formidable opponent was vulnerable to the atmosphere like Zuckuss was. No such luck.

The one-armed Yautja hunter howled as the current white water carried them away. Suddenly, the hunter, looking ahead, turned and grabbed a tree branch they were passing. Bossk grinned through blood and missing teeth. He had won. Then, suddenly he heard a roaring ahead of him. Turning, he realized he was heading toward a waterfall. And there was nothing for him to grab.

IG-88 swooped back and forth through the trees as the droid's jet pack flared behind it leaving a small trail of smoke and slightly burnt foliage. This was minimalist damage compared to the plasma explosions that followed in his wake. Using half of his optic sensors to watch behind itself, IG-88 was able to fire backwards most effectively slowing it's pursuer down. The assassin droid tried getting a signal to call Boba Fett but all communication signals were being jammed.

Flying along a small gorge, IG-88 headed toward the Master's base thinking to run into one of the other teams the Master had sent out, unfortunately that was when the droid's frame was nicked by one of the plasma balls being fired at it.

The resulting explosion hurled it into the entrance of one of the caverns where the droid bounced, breaking off one of it's arms, and dislodging a few boulders, some of which fell onto the droid.

The young hunter disengaged his cloaking field and stepped over his metallic prey. Mechanisms were not their regular quarry but sometimes they made the better trophies. As IG-88 tried to move, the young hunter stabbed down with his Combi Stick, effectively destroying the assassin droid's circuitry and processors.

Regarding the 'kill', the young Yautja finally determined to bring back the droid's head and one of it's limbs as a trophy when he heard noise from inside the cavern. Out walked a tall muscular man wearing a large black leather jacket, but what caught the young hunter's attention most was the rifle that he held.

The Yautja reacted by throwing a Shuriken-type weapon that ripped through the man's shoulder. The large man went back a few steps, regarded the wound for a moment, then turned it's attention back on the hunter.

Beneath his mask, the young hunter's mandibles formed what other's of it's kind could discern to be a smile. He had a worthy foe.

The man brought up his weapon with blinding speed by the young Yautja leaped out of view. The man stepped forward, unconcerned about running, and took another shot at the retreating Yautja. The young hunter reengaged his camouflage unit and moved to a better vantage point.

The man scanned the area for his opponent, heedless of his shoulder injury. Suddenly he turned and fired as the young hunter leapt onto him from above. The Yautja slashed at the man with his wrist razors, angry at having been shot in the leg. He slashed again and the man grabbed the hunter's wrists in his own with incredible strength.

It was then that the young hunter realized his mistake. This was no ordinary man. His slashing had revealed that underneath the fleshy exterior was an android.

The fighting continued for five more minutes. When it was over the T-800 cyborg unit regarded the damages done to itself to be minimal though he was missing parts of his fleshy exterior. It was most pronounced along the left side of it's face and the front part of his chest. The bleeding had already stopped but it would require some quick medical procedures if it was going to keep his flesh alive. If it could find the nutrients, it could regrow the tissue though there would be scarring.

Then it assessed the superior weaponry worn by the dead Yautja hunter and determined it could use most of it in it's continued quest to find Sarah Connor. It also took the assassin droid's blaster rifle. In less than a minute it had scanned the equipment and determined the use of it, it's range and how long it would last.

**ACT 3 – WHOSE FOOLING WHO?**

Swimming in the small cave pond, Sigmund sang soft sea melodies to himself as he searched for some juicy crayfish to snack on. He wasn't really hungry, but needed to rehydrate himself before he moved on much further.

Sela stood next to Holly as they watched the young seaweed monster swim lazily about the pond. She had actually been placed as their guard, but for now they were not to know that they were considered prisoners.

Earlier when the brother and sister, Will and Holly Marshal, had come down with the sea creature, Sigmund, to offer them aid after they had witnessed Sela's group being attacked by invisible aliens, the group of rouges had agreed to let the youths believe that they were not malicious, to play nice for now as a means to learn more about them and the land that they had landed.

Shortly after that, three adults had returned for the youths. One was their uncle Jack Marshal. The other two were new to the land as well. One was called the Professor who seemed to be a very enigmatic man, and his companion was a young ornery young woman named Ace. Sela and her group decided to keep up their rouse and were soon rewarded by Jack telling them about the Borg.

Still feeling vulnerable after being attacked, and even more so after discovering the remains of Seska, they had quickly moved to the more protected environment of the large cavern. This was also advantageous in that the underground tunnel system of the Sleestak connected to the cavern at the far end. The formidable Alpha Hirogen guarded the entrance to the outside while Khan Noonien Singh guarded the tunnel entrance at the far side of the cavern.

Holly chattered on while Sela pinched the bridge of her nose as she felt a headache come on. Evidently Holly had not had another female to talk with for a few years and was making up for lost time. Since the young teenage was the most loose lipped of the group Sela had the best chance to gather information from her about this strange land.

"-and they use some type of moth to fertilize their eggs. Have you ever heard of such a thing?"

"I encountered races that lay eggs, some that procreate asexually, some that were hermaphrodites, some that incubate their young in paralyzed prey, and I've even heard of a species that transmits bacteria into another species which will cause it to change to their species including the intellect."

"That's horrible!" Holly was aghast. "I'm mean some of those were bizarre or somewhat scary but to lose your identity…to not know who or what you were? That's horrible!"

Sela tried to shrug indifference, but found it difficult since it struck so close to how she felt as a child. Growing up in the Romulan Empire as a Romulan/Human hybrid was not easy. Being blonde on a planet of dark-haired people made it even more difficult.

"Tell me, how did the Sleestak become savages?"

Holly shook her head. "We don't know. Enik is the only example we have of what they were like. Enik's a time traveler from over a thousand years ago. Maybe even ten thousand. Anyway, he wants to go back and fix whatever happened so that it won't but he can't." She paused in thought. "You know, when we first got here our dad did meet a Sleestak that was intelligent…, well, that is to say much more intelligent than the others. He explained to my dad that once every couple of generations a Sleestak hatched with innate knowledge. And-"

She listened to every word as the young girl rattled on and on. Looking down at the young blonde Human with her hair in pigtails, she realized that could have had a daughter about this old. She could have had several children at this point in her life. But if she had she would not have risen nearly as far as she had. Perhaps never to have ever served on a Romulan ship. No, she had chosen to prove herself to her father by striding forward through the ranks that were against her- first, because she was only half-Romulan, and secondly, because she was female.

She shook her head slightly in annoyance. What was this she was feeling? Was this regret? _Now that would be truly pathetic_, she thought. The Romulan military was her career and home. Protecting the Romulan Empire was her duty. Her striving up through the gauntlet of officers improved the quality of officer she became and made her stronger. She scowled down at the still talking young lady who had inadvertently made her momentarily doubt herself.

"-despite all his advances, the Zarn looks down on us and considers us to be some type of troublesome primitives."

"And that is similar to how you perceive the Sleestak," Sela coolly remarked.

Holly jerked as if slapped. She looked up at the Romulan woman but Sela was pretending to watch Sigmund in the pond. "That's different," Holly said. "The Sleestak degenerated. They don't care about anyone else. Sometimes not even each other."

"So that makes it all right to take away their land and stop them from following their customs?"

"First off, Sleestak live underground. Sure, they come out at night but for the most part they prefer their dark tunnels. But as for their beliefs, when it comes to them trying to throw me or my family into a pit for their so-called god to eat, then yeah, I'll stop them from following their beliefs."

Sela grinned in spite of herself. She liked this young Human. "I have traveled far but I've seen few worlds that have had two sentient species rise up at the same time. It almost always ends with genocide of one of the races or at least the enslavement of the weaker race."

Holly shuddered. "I can't believe that."

"Oh, really? What about your friend Sigmund. He's a seaweed creature. He's mostly vegetable but he has enough protein in him to make him also count as an animal. Why do you think he and his people hide their existence from the world? Isn't it because the more numerous and technologically advanced Humans would want to capture them, subject them to tests, perhaps even enslave them so as to explore the deeps of the oceans of Earth and gain more conquest for mankind."

"No!" Holly cried out. "No," she repeated in a more quiet and subdued tone. As young as she was, even she knew that there would always be someone who would love to exploit Sigmund's seaweed people. Rich corporations. Some military outfits. Underwater treasure hunters. Even some of the kookier religious groups or the stupid hate groups.

"You know, I'd always kinda pictured mankind reaching the stars and embracing the aliens they find there. Perhaps joining together into some type of coalition to explore the outer limits of the galaxy and protect the races that need protecting."

Sela stared at this girl. She was describing the Federation and Starfleet. Was the concept of unity so apart of the Human psyche that even from the twentieth century Humans could dream of a future where there is a Starfleet and Federation?

Perhaps, she considered, they should talk about something else. "So…do you have any friends here?"

Meanwhile, in a spot near the entrance so they had some light from outside, Captain James T. Kirk of the Mirror Universe held a small flashlight instead of the phaser he'd rather be using.

"Hold the light steady, captain." The small man carefully examined the stub of an arm while using a small, thin rod to gently move wires out of the way of his sight.

"Careful!" cautioned Lore, whose stub of an arm was being examined.

"Yes," agreed the Professor. "If the metal in these two wires were to touch, it would cause quite a disruption to your system. It would most likely be the equivalent to severe pain for an android like yourself."

Lore appraised the man again. He looked ridiculous in his straw hat. His jacket further marked the man as a clown or in need of some type of therapy as is was covered in question marks. Also the man insisted on being called the Professor, stating that his actual name would be too difficult for them to pronounce.

The Professor had arrived with the kids' uncle and another girl, Ace, who seemed to be a bit of a loner. They had just come from an encounter with the Borg and as such they had useful information that Lore and his crew wanted. Kirk had wanted to torture the information out of them but had been quickly outvoted. Most of them agreed that the most useful information could be derived from them if they thought of Sela and her group as benevolent travelers who just want to stop the Borg.

The Professor had expressed an immediate interest in Lore and had mentioned that he thought he could reattach the android's arm. Lore had been doubtful, but really didn't want to try facing the Borg without an arm. So he ran the Professor through a series of high-tech questions which he answered easily. That gave the android hope and he allowed this stranger access to his damaged area.

Kirk, meanwhile, was bored. At his feet, he poked at a bag that the Professor carried around. Something familiar was sticking out of it. "And what is this?" Kirk asked, with a slightly accusatory tone, as he pulled out the charred, severed arm of the Yautja that Lore had shot off in retaliation for the damages to his limb.

The Professor glanced over and shrugged. "It fascinated me. I hope to give it a more thorough examination later when I have more time." The time-lord turned back to his work and pretended great interest in Lore's arm. "Can you feel this?" he asked as Lore's remaining stump began to rise up and down.

"No," Lore said, looking at the moving stump in fascination.

The Professor struggled with the super-strong limb for a moment before finally pressing something that caused it to stop moving. "Hmmm. Okay. Everything seems alright. A few wires are charred but can be replaced. The chips I showed you earlier, are you sure we can bypass them for now?"

"The microchips will have to be replaced eventually, but I should be fine for a few weeks without them," said Lore.

"Very well," said the Professor. "Sorry for taking so long but in situations like these I think its better safe than sorry."

"Yes, we wouldn't want to be sorry," Lore answered in a veiled threat.

"This arm is monstrous!" Kirk had put down the flashlight and was now engrossed in examining the Yautja's dismembered arm. "And look at these wrist blades!"

In frustration, the Professor took the flashlight in order to examine the arm better. He began tinkering again deep in Lore's arm. "This won't look pretty but it should work."

Lore nodded. "If I was on better terms with the Borg, I could have them reattach my arm. Or they could even attach that alien limb to me in it's place. Now that would be an interesting experience."

The Professor paused. "You know the Borg very well, do you?"

Lore didn't hesitate. Considering the speed at which his mind ran he didn't have to. "In my travels I have learned of many parallel worlds encounters, often times with Humans. I can only assume that there could be Borg in many of these parallel universes as well. So do I know these particular ones? No. Besides, the group I encountered had been disconnected from the Borg Collective. They had been infected with self-awareness, and had to be discarded from the Collective or they would have contaminated all of it."

"Wasn't there another piece of hardware on this forearm?" asked Kirk.

The Professor, the seventh incarnation of the Doctor, glanced over in mild interest. "I really couldn't say. I only found it after we were introduced to all of you. Now, please, when you are done with it, if you would return it to my bag, I would be grateful." He returned to Lore's stub, putting the last of the circuitry in place, while ignoring the angry glare coming from Kirk. "There. You should feel a twinge."

Lore's eyes rolled back for a moment or two before shaking his head. "That was…weird. What did you do?"

"Oh, a little of this and a little of that. In case you didn't notice, you were falling apart." When Lore seemed to accept that, he continued. "Now, let's reattach that arm, shall we?"

Across the underground pond, Will Marshal was staring at Gul Dukat.

"Will," said his uncle. "You are doing it again."

"Wha-oh." He glanced back at Dukat. "Sorry."

Dukat merely nodded. "You are still new to the concept of alien races. It is to be expected." As they had been walking around the pond, he had been looking around for where the female Changeling had flowed off to for her time of rest. She had made sure it was hidden and that none of them knew where it was. Trust was in short supply among this group.

"No," said Will. "I've seen lots of science fiction films with good and bad aliens. I've even met a few here. But every time I meet one it just blows me away."

"'Blows me away'? Is that another euphemism?" asked the Cardassian.

"I'm afraid so," said Jack, Will's uncle." His generation has practically created another language with all the euphemisms they use."

Dukat smiled. "Each generation does strive to be set apart from their parents."

"Tell us more of this quest that you are on," asked Jack, not wanting to get sidetracked.

Dukat nodded. He used the story that Khan had told Will and Holly, keeping it simple so that there wouldn't be any contradictions.

"But why did these Borg people come here?" asked Will

Dukat frowned. Q2 hadn't explained that part to them, except to say that they had discovered another source of technology that they just had to have. "Do you know what an opportunistic pathogen is?" He looked at their confused faces. "Or is that above the level of medical terms that you are used to?"

"I've heard it before," said Jack, "from a nurse I used to date. But medicine and biology were never things I studied very much."

"Very well," said Dukat. "An opportunistic pathogen in a type of bacteria that live in certain type of the body, sometimes benefiting the body in certain functions. Many of these microorganisms are content to stay just where they are. But when something goes wrong, like an abrasion that allows them to leak into a part of the body that is not able to protect itself from the bacteria, then the little pathogens take the opportunity to thrive and grow with little restraint in their new environment."

"Now the Borg are somewhat similar to this but different."

"Different how?" asked Will.

"They expand further and further with nothing to hold them back. Their objectives are to absorb new technologies and alien life forms into their Collective. If they come across a world that has vast amounts of technology that they do not currently possess, they will absorb the whole world – every living sentient and very bit of technology would be absorbed along with a majority of the resources of that planet. If the Borg come across a more primitive culture on a planet, they may choose to bypass it after taking a sampling of about a hundred to a thousand of the local population to add to the Collective. If the Borg needed a large amount of mineral found on a planet that was habitated by a more primitive culture they would just cut off a segment of the planet that they wanted and use tractor beams to pull that section up into the atmosphere to their ship. Any survivors were either turned into Borg drones or died of asphyxiation."

"A segment of a planet?" Jack said in disbelief.

"Appalling, isn't it?" agreed Dukat. "But the real sad part is that if any of the bypassed culture in Borg territory did manage to advance enough to come up with a new form of technology it would be worse than a death sentence for them."

Will turned to his uncle. "You saw them. Are they really that bad?"

Jack put a hand on his nephew's shoulder. "What I saw back there…is something you don't want to see."

**AUTHOR'S NOTES**

_The Zorak and Lokar mini-story was a small sequel to what had happened in the last posting. I had meant to include it but it was late at night and I was trying to post before going to bed and forgot it. Zorak and Lokar never really liked each other and it only made sense to me that Zorak would take down Lokar if he ever got a real opportunity._

_As for the Bounty Hunters and Predator fight, that was just fun. And I had thought to include the wandering Terminator at the last minute too._

_I have left Q2's team by the wayside for a while now and I'm glad to get back to them. My excuse…Lore needed his arm fixed._

_Hey! This time I didn't add anyone! No such luck next time as Boba Fett is going blow to blow against…. Now that would be telling. Come see us again and you will see even more surprises. Oh, and I'm still open to suggestions for characters to add._


	9. Chapter 9

**PART 9 – CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE VIOLENT KIND**

**ACT 1 – BITING THE HAND TO FEED YOU**

"That's all I can do for now, Kathryn." Admiral McCoy stretched as he began putting away his medical equipment. "It's a good thing that Q made me young again or there is no way I could have treated you being on my knees so long.

Captain Janeway sat up with a groan. Her face had been peppered by wood splinters, and she had fractured her jaw when she fell. She had been fortunate. Her eyes were undamaged, the scarring could all be repaired and she'd most likely be able to eat solid foods again in a week. "Ank ew, ock-or."

"You are going to have to take it easy for a while."

She just looked at him.

"Well, at least as much as possible when people or who knows what isn't trying to kill us."

She started to chuckle but stopped due to the pain.

"Rest," he said, in a surprisingly kind, bedside manner and tone.

She lay back down slowly and gingerly. While her face had gotten the worst of the splinters, there had been a few that had managed to lodge themselves into her shoulders, left arm and chest. She grunted and pointed over at the prone figure of Kes, hoping that hearing about her would distract her from her own pain.

The young female Ocampa had been on Voyager for a few years after Neelix had brought her aboard. She had adapted to crew life quickly and worked as a medical aide and in the Airponics Garden. Somehow she had evolved. Whether this was due to being away from her planet's environment or to the fact that she had been exposed to many different things was unknown. Whatever the reason, she had become very powerful. Realizing she had to go her own way as she began to lose her corporeal form and become pure energy, she used her new-found powers to propel Voyager and it's crew over nine thousand light-years closer to Federation space. When Q had called her to be part of his team of Borg hunters, he had restored her to bodily form and had to reduce her powers. When Janeway had been injured, Kes had tried using those powers again. But her body was not able to take the strain and she had been coma-like ever since.

"Ah, yes, Kes." McCoy checked his tricorder as it was receiving all the data about her from a small monitoring device above one of Kes's eyebrows. "My most compliant patient. Not like that damn Klingon. He barely let me tend his wounds." He punched the tricorder a few times. "Well, I don't have much to go on since her species anatomy and physiology are not in Starfleet's database. I did get a data download of Kes's medical history from Voyager's computer before we came here." He sighed. "Unfortunately, it can't help me tell very much of what is normal for her. Q seems to have frozen her partially in her transition phase when she was originally evolving, and I don't think her body likes that. But her mind wants to do things that she could do when she didn't have a body. Her telesynaptic activity is higher than it was when she first joined Voyager, which explains the extremely elevated serotonin levels. It allows her to do some of the things she could before but not much."

Janeway made an impatient arms open wide gesture.

"Basically, she seems to have suffered a stroke and we have to wait for her to wake herself up. There doesn't appear to be any permanent damage but that doesn't mean that there won't be any. I'm sorry."

Janeway, unable to say anything, reached a hand over and touched Kes's shoulder. Remembering something that her mother used to do ever night before bed, she began a silent prayer.

A short distance away, Spock and Captain Picard examined the still form of one of those that had attacked them recently, an android. Even though the mechanoid was not functioning they had taken the precaution to tie it up as thoroughly as they could. They had all been in situations where they had misjudged their captives chances of attacking them and were doing their best not to repeat past mistakes. Then and only then did they use their tricorders to analyze and process information from the still forms.

"I wish Data was here," commented Picard. "He'd love to examine this android. Many of it's components are beyond me, I'm afraid." Spock made no comment so Picard continued to expound his thoughts. "I think it may be sentient. Hmm, but why would it attack us?"

Spock looked up from his tricorder. "It's name is 4-LOM. That much I have translated. It appears to work for a being called Jabba the Hutt. This Jabba seems to have removed certain safeguards that usually keep 4-LOM and his kind from killing sentient beings. This was done so that Jabba could send 4-LOM and another…I think the name is Zuckuss, to collect bounties on people, dead or alive."

"Well, why would this Jabba person send these bounty hunters after us?"

Spock held up a hand as he read something from his tricorder. "Ah, this might explain some things. According to 4-LOM, he and five of his fellow hunters were brought here by a man only known as the Master."

"The Master? Isn't that the title of the man that the Doctor was upset to learn was coming here?"

"Indeed. This Master sent 4-LOM and his fellow bounty collectors specifically on the errand of to find and kill us before we could locate the Borg."

Picard rubbed his chin. "And by taking out the competition, it ensures that Q2 would win his wager over Q; that is if Q2's team is able to stop the Borg."

In the clearing nearby a large elk stumbled into the daylight, it's eyes rolling in it's head and it's tongue hanging out of it's mouth. Three large quills could be seen sticking out of it's neck with small trails of blood.

Ro Laren almost said something as the large creature fell to the ground but Martok motioned her to be silent.

Spiky covered basketball things rolled out of the woods after the elk. As they reached their target, they unfolded to reveal that they were actually spiny ball-shaped creatures with large mouths and many sharp teeth The creatures ranged in color from totally black to navy blue. As if on a signal, they all tore into the fallen elk with the fury of a chainsaw, fighting each other for the more savory parts.

"GET DOWN!" Martok automatically leaped down as a blaster where he had been only moments before. Everyone else ducked for cover as well. Picard tried pulling 4-LOM to cover as well but the unknown voice shouted again. "FORGET THE SYNTHOID! GET TO COVER!" Picard dived to the side, narrowly being missed by more blaster shots.

Boba Fett sent off three more shots in rapid succession before glancing to where the warning shout had come from. A branch swayed slightly about thirty yards from him. Whoever it was was gone now. Either that someone was very fast or they were cloaked from view.

He had spent an hour crouching and slowly climbing trees in order to get close enough to get a bead on most of the targets. In less than a second someone had ruined all that. And that someone would pay.

Hearing something flying through the air towards him, Fett leapt to the side off the tree and simultaneously ignited his jet pack. A small dark sharp object spun past him and was lost amongst the tree branches.

On the ground, Martok moved to get a shot at the sniper. "General! Down!" shouted Ro.

Martok ducked again. Six quills imbedded themselves into the tree next to him.

Spock, knelling behind a nearby tree, aimed his tricorder at the quills. "Interesting. There is a quick acting sedative and paralyzing ingredients in the quills. Not enough to kill. Most likely it is so the prey is alive and fresh when they feed on it. It would be to our best interest not to be pierced with one."

"You think!" shouted Ro.

"Hold your fire!" said Picard. "Let's see if they move on." Even as he said this he saw the armored form of Boba Fett fly by and shoot at Sisko who returned fire.

The hungry Krites stared at the humanoids. More had rolled in from the woods to partake of the kill but most of the elk was gone already. They weren't concerned though. There was plenty more food nearby.

One of the basketball sized creatures seemed to rally the others. The results were several of the spiny creatures bending over and firing numerous quills at Spock and the others.

"Duck!" cried out Picard.

Martok fired his phaser at one of the creatures who promptly exploded all over his fellow Krites.

"Martok! There was no need to kill!"

Martok continued firing. "I disagree, Captain Picard. And as I am not under Starfleet regulations I will take that under advisement." Another toothy creature exploded into goo.

"Captain," said Spock, "with the dosage of those quills, in the number that they just fired at us, it would have been lethal."

Picard didn't have time to argue schematics. "Ro! Go help McCoy protect Janeway and Kes!" She moved to comply but had to duck as Fett fired down on them again.

"And somebody shoot that sniper!"

As Fett flew past his prey somebody landed on his back and knocked the rifle out of his hands.

"Just my opinion but I don't think those people appreciate being shot at," said a voice just behind him with a sarcastic tone. The figure deactivated his camouflage circuit in his suit which revealed someone in a black outfit with a large red winged mammal emblazed across his chest. On top of his hood were long pointed ears. "By the way, I'm Batman."

The Batman did something to Fett's jetpack and they began to fall, but jets from the Dark Knight's feet carried them swiftly to a tree branch where the bounty hunter was slammed into the trunk.

"Now be a good little sniper and-"

Fett turned and a cord sprang out from his wrist wrapping around Batman. And then it began to constrict. Batman struggled with it briefly before falling off the branch and found himself hanging upside down.

Using a small hand held laser, Terry McGinnis cut the cord enough so that he could use the enhanced strength provided by his battle suit to free himself before Fett could finish him off.

Over thirty feet below them, Spock, Martok and Picard were shooting at any of the spiny creatures that came near.

"Picard!" Sisko shouted. Picard, who had been using 4-LOM as a shield, rolled aside as a ball creature leaped forward and bit into the droid. A small explosion of electricity and organic matter left a small hole in 4-LOM's side along with a few well lodged teeth.

Spock looked to Picard. "We cannot stay here! They are trying to separate us from the others!"

Picard glanced to where he could see McCoy, Ro and even Janeway firing at the deadly things rolling among the trees.

"Go!" shouted Martok. "I'll cover you!"

They hurried toward McCoy and the others. One of the creatures rolled in front of them and Spock kicked it with all his might sending it soaring into the trees where it stuck against a tree truck in a daze.

After clearing a place for them to duck down, they motioned for Martok to come while they laid down a suppressing fire. The one-eyed Klingon made it halfway before a couple of quills his him in the side of his chest, a few penetrating all the way through his armor. With a Klingon curse he shot at the offending critter, but it managed to roll away to the cover of the trees while Martok received more quills from different sources.

"Martok! Get out of there!" shouted Sisko.

To their horror the Klingon fell to the earthen floor. One of the braver creatures rolled forward and bit into the fallen warrior's thigh meeting some annoying resistance due to the Klingon armor. Martok, half-sedated, drew a long serrated knife and with a quick turn stabbed the blade deep into the creature's ear killing it.

Sisko, having peeled off a large section of dried bark off a dead tree used it as a shield as he ran out to the Klingon. On his knees, the Starfleet captain pulled out the nasty looking quills and then with great effort, he managed to get Martok onto his feet and pulled an arm over his shoulder. In this fashion, while yelling encouragement to Martok, he dragged the Klingon toward safety, only dropping the bark shield at the last possible moment. For his effort, Sisko received three quills in his left butt cheek.

Janeway shot the offending Krite and another next to it as she helped clear a path for Sisko.

As they reached the cover the others had, McCoy reached over and pulled out the quills from Sisko's backside much to Sisko's chagrin. "I should have something to neutralize the effects of whatever this is soon," he said.

Above the ground fighters, Batman and Boba Fett exchanged blows, each learning from having previously underestimating each other. Fett's helmet was dented which caused a slight visual distortion on the inside of his helmet. Meanwhile, Batman's uniform was charred across his chest effectively disrupting his camouflaging abilities.

The tree branch next to Fett exploded. Realizing that the ground targets were now more barricaded from the creatures attacking them, they were taking time to try shoot him down, too. Cutting his loses, Fett kicked Batman away and leapt to another tree.

By the time Batman was able to go after the bounty hunter, he realized that it would be more prudent of him to help the people below him from the creatures besetting them. "Man, those critters look like Pac-Man on Joker-Juice." He flew down to engage the toothy predators.

**PART 2 – **

"You just left him there!?!"

Rygel shook his head dismissively. "I assure you, young miss, it was they who left me."

"You should have gone with them!" Sheila cried out. Hank held her, both to comfort her as well as to keep her from lashing out at the small alien.

"As I told you, when your brother left with the other two children, they ran through a wall of dirt. Through it. After ensuring that those cybernetic people were unable to pursue the children I came back to inform you."

Eric was not impressed. "That story is full of hogwash and so are you!"

"Listen," Chiana stepped between them. "I know from experience that Rygel's a manipulative liar." Rygel was about to protest when she continued. "But in his defense, he's too intelligent to make up such a stupid story."

Rygel was about to thank her but decided against it on principle.

"Then where's Bobby?" cried Sheila. Uni, the young white unicorn with the orange mane mewled in agreement with Bobby's sister.

"I told you already," said Rygel.

All of them stood in the deep Sleestak tunnels near the section that had been caved in to block whatever it had been that had been attacking the Sleestak.

Off to one side Presto glanced at Enik, their Sleestak guide. "So do people normally walk through walls here?" He surmised that Enik, being a native here, might have more of a clue as to what may have happened.

"Not to my knowledge."

"Any clue as to how they may have done it or may have gone?"

Enik briefly hummed to himself. "Perhaps they stepped into a portal that Rygel couldn't see."

"A portal?" repeated Diana. "Didn't you say that the portals here could go to other dimensions and time periods?"

Everyone was listening now. "They could be anywhere. Anywhen. Literally!" said Eric. "We'll never get him back."

Hank slugged him in the shoulder. "Hey! What-" When he saw the teary look in Sheila's eye to his words and he turned away shamefaced.

"We'll get him back," Hank said, reassuringly.

"How?"

"Why don't you use your _magic_?" Rygel said sardonically.

"Why you-" Eric aimed a kick at the exiled Hynerian but Rygel was too fast.

"Wait!" Enik held up a clawed hand. "The little one may be right. Perhaps we can use your magic instruments to find your missing brother."

Sheila wiped away her tears. "But how?"

Enik pointed toward Presto.

"Uh, Enik. I think you might be mistaken," said Presto.

"No I am not. I have seen your magical devices and I have determined that yours to be the most powerful and underestimated."

The Magician pulled the green cloth hat off his head and shook it. "Look, this thing never works right. I've tried numerous times and it never does what I want."

"I believe that is because you have no faith in yourself and the your abilities to control the powers contained in the hat," said the Altrusian.

Presto shook his head, but hank stepped over. "Presto, he may be right."

Presto flung out his arm in frustration. "Well, if he is I still don't see how it helps. If I can't make it work, then how am I supposed to use it to find Bobby?"

"There may be a way," said Enik, as he reached down into his side pouch and pulled out a yellow glowing crystal on a string.

"What's that for?" asked the nervous Magician.

"I believe the term you use is called hypnosis."

"What? No way! Erik would have me thinking I was a chicken!"

"No I wouldn't," responded the Cavalier. "I'd much rather see your duck impression." He burst out laughing.

"Eric, stop." Sheila turned to Presto. "Please, Presto. For Bobby and me?"

Presto glanced at the yellow crystal hesitantly. "Ah, well alright, but keep Eric's suggestions to himself."

A few minutes later Presto had fallen into a deep trance and Enik lowered the yellow crystal. "Presto," said Enik. "Do you understand what we are asking you to do?"

With a quiet, mellow voice Presto answered. "You want me to use the hat to find Bobby."

"Yes," agreed Enik, "now I-"

"Wait!" said Diana. She leaned close to Presto. "Presto, listen to me. You are a very powerful magic user. You are very confident of your abilities."

Presto stood up straight and thrust back his shoulders. A confident smile appeared on his face.

From the back a snicker was heard. "This is better than having him think he was a duck."

Diana continued on, but shot Eric a warning glance. "Now, Presto. We want you to use your magic hat to find Bobby and help us bring him back to safety."

"A simple matter, my dear, at least it is for the great Presto!" the red-head said with a bow. The showman in him seemed to take over. "Nothing up my sleeve," he said, as he dramatically pulled back each green sleeve. Then, taking the hat from his head, he began a small chant while waving his fingers over the open glowing hat.

"_Bobby has gone on some awful plight, now show us the way to him, hat, shed some light!"_

A blast of white light burst out of the hat, curved away from Presto's hand and then dove between Chiana and Eric. It struck the earthen wall of the tunnel while flooding the tunnel with light and a slight roaring sound.

Enik faltered due to the sudden light and the few Sleestak that had followed them had to back away due to their light sensitive eyes.

"Where is he!" shouted Sheila, trying to be heard over the slight roaring, as the light continued to pour out of Presto's hat and strike the wall.

"Just…give Presto a chance," said Hank, as he squinted into the light for a sign of anything.

The roaring continued for a minute and then another. Everyone, except Presto, was beginning to wonder about the futility of the experiment when three children suddenly rushed out of the light – one of which was Bobby.

"They're coming! They're coming!" cried the tall, thin girl.

Bobby turned and took up a fighting stance with his wooden club raised and glowing.

Presto closed his hat. "Nonsense. No harm shall befall you while-"

Four massive subterranean creatures erupted through the sides of the tunnel walls. They were slug-shaped and varied between thirty to twenty feet long and were about six to five feet in width. There was no face to speak of, no eyes or nose, just a massive beak that appeared to be armored and open in three sections. As the beaks opened, each mouth revealed three serpent-like tongues that reached out seeking ten feet in length. Each tongue-head seemed to have a mouth of their own to bit with as well as horns.

Eric used his magic shield to create a mystic barrier to protect Chiana and Rygel from one of the questing tongues. "What the hell are those things!?!"

"Does it matter?" asked Diana, the Acrobat, who whacked at the prehensile tongues with her staff, trying to distract it from Sheila, the Thief, who was pulling on her mystic hood to make herself invisible.

Hank, the Ranger, fired repeatedly at one of the monsters that was concentrating it's efforts on trying to get to Bobby, the Barbarian, but his energy arrows bounced off it's armored beak.

"Someone get True and Uly out of here!" shouted Bobby.

True, who was holding the barely awake and shaking form of Uly, was shrieking and kicking at one of the nearing tongue heads. Bobby smashed the offensive tongue-head into a gory smear on the tunnel floor just before it was able to grab True's foot. The result was enraging the massive beast.

Uni charged forward and speared one of the long tongues with her horn. The tongue tendril flexed in pain resulting in the young unicorn being tossed away where Enik caught her mostly by default because the small filly was flying straight at him.

Bobby, outraged, charged forward, knocking the remaining two tongues aside and then struck a blow with his glowing club to the main body of the beast. It flew up about six feet into the air and then crashed down again, it's remaining tongues knocking Bobby away.

Sheila rushed forward, but one of the other graboids sensed her and used one of it's long tongues to wrap around her legs. She screamed.

"Sheila!" Hank wanted to shoot the tongues they seemed to hold her but didn't dare since she was invisible and he didn't want to accidentally shoot her. Hank pulled back on his bow and willed all the energy he could into the arrow. Then he let it fly straight down the monster's gullet.

It exploded into flying gore.

Chiana, sick of hiding behind Eric's shield, rushed over to Sheila, who had managed to take off her hood to make herself visible again. The Nebari female picked up to hand-sized rocks and smashed them down on the still semi-constricting graboid tongues until they fell off the young woman.

"Hmm," said Presto, as one of the great beasts lumbered toward him. He wiggled his fingers over his magic hat again. "_Since I don't have a pistol, let's just turn you into crystal_."

Smoke poured out of the green glowing hat towards the oncoming graboid. And where the smoke touched the underground predator it began to quickly turn to crystal.

The final graboid, who had been sparring with Diana, suddenly realized that it's hunt mates had been destroyed so it turned and quickly burrowed away through the wall it had recently just emerged from.

"That's right!" shouted Eric. "You better run!"

"Ha! Ha! We showed them!" said an exuberant Rygel.

"We? We? You just hid behind my shield!"

Rygel looked up at Eric. "So did you."

Eric decided to drop the issue. "Hey, Presto! Good job, man!" He slapped the Magician hard on the back.

Presto fumbled for his glasses. As he placed them back on his face, he looked at Eric. "Hey, what happened here?"

Eric was shocked. "You don't remember?"

Presto adjusted his glasses as he looked around the room. "Did I do that?"

**AUTHOR'S NOTES:**

_I thought the Critters vs. Q's Star Trek team would be an interesting addition, especially with Boba Fett trying to kill them as well. Then I thought about someone going against Boba Fett. I'd seen a number of the Batman vs. Boba Fett debates before and disagreed with a lot of the results of Boba Fett winning. Then I wondered what if Batman had futuristic weaponry, which led me to think of BATMAN BEYOND, where Terry McGinnis has been allowed to become the next Batman under Bruce Wayne's tutelage. I also remembered that when I started Part 8 that we were heavily leaning toward Saturday morning sci-fi cartoons. Well, BATMAN BEYOND definitely qualifies. Hope you liked the results._

_Now I did mention that Uly and True had said they had run into the Critters in a earlier adventure before finding Bobby so they have already been mentioned as somehow arriving in the LAND OF THE LOST._

_Now as for one of the kids running through dirt like it was air, if you haven't seen EARTH 2, then you should. Earth had become a very hostile environment to live in because of all the pollutants and such. This being the case, more and more kids were being born in orbit around Earth but also more and more of them were weak and would not live past ten or so. Uly mother led a group to find another planet to relocate on and hopefully find something to save her child. Instead the Terrans, the inhabitants of this planet found them instead. The Terrans had the ability to move through the ground like it was air, and sensing something wrong in Uly, they took and made him somewhat like them._

STAR WARS VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI

Jabba the Hutt (mentioned only)

BATMAN BEYOND (1999 – 2001)

Batman/Terry McGinnis – (Will Friedle)

TREMORS (1990) & TREMORS: THE SERIES (2003)

Graboids


	10. Chapter 10

**PART 10 –**

**ACT 1 – **

Alf had had to go for a walk. It had just been getting too crowded with all the Humans and robots. He hated to admit it but it had been starting to make him feel alone in the crowd, being the only Melmacian. Alf considered Cha-Ka a good kid, but he wasn't much of a conversationalist.

Alf's real problem had been everyone's reaction to cooking that attacker, Brak's, tail. He had already decided against eating it when the others began coming down on him. In truth he knew it was wrong to eat sentient beings. Even the parts that come off of sentient beings that are trying to kill you, like Brak's tail. Still the smell had reminded him of his mom's feline casserole.

Hearing something approaching over the small hill, he stopped. Knowing that wherever this place was that there were a lot of very big, very hungry lizards, he ducked behind some foliage. He took a peek and two people about two inches in height being chased by a male dwarf with a large butterfly net. Or was the term midget, or little person. Or maybe he was normal sized and belongs to a tribe of pygmies. Whatever his personal designation was he was a lot bigger than the two people he was chasing.

"Run, Lucy!"

"I am, Tom!"

"Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! I've got you now!" He slammed the net over the two running figures, effectively trapping them. Hugo reached down to examine his prizes. "Dr. Shrinker will be happy with me! I told him I could catch you! I may have had to run to a part of the island that I've never seen before but I caught you! I – eh?" I – eh?"

He looked down to examine his catch more thoroughly. "You – you have tails?"

When he went to touch one of the tails, Lucy slapped his finger. "Never touch the tail!"

"You are too young, too. You aren't those college kids that Dr. Shrinker shrank. Who are you?"

Tom looked at Lucy and then back up at Hugo. "Does that mean you are going to let us go?"

Hugo grinned. "Not on you little lives! Dr. Shrinker loves new discoveries. Especially if they turn out to be lucrative!"

Alf had heard enough. "Hey screwball, why don't you pick on someone your own size? Me for instance." Alf stepped out from behind the leaves.

Hugo gapped at the hairy creature with the large snout. "W-w-w-w-wha-wha-what are you?"

"I? I am the eater of evil little sidekicks!" He pulled out his knife and fork. "Now let the little munchkins go and I'll do the same for you."

"Uh, um." Hugo started backing away. "How do I know that-oww!" He dropped the butterfly net. "You bit me!" he looked accusingly down at the two small forms trying to get out of the net.

"Hey! I'll bite you if you don't back away from them!" Alf approached menacingly, rubbing his knife and fork together.

"You're going to eat me?" Hugo was aghast.

"What can I say? I think everyone should take a bite out of crime."

Before they got any farther, three figures jumped out behind Hugo. Two were in white uniforms with red trim and a large R across the chest. The third didn't need any clothing. It was a cat. And it was standing in front of the two Humans while holding a large cloth bag that appeared to be very full.

"Ha! Ha! Prepare for trouble!" said Jessie

"Make it double!" said James

"Alright already," said Meowth. "You've said the motto over twenty times today. Just put a cork in it and help me with this bag."

They ignored the Meowth and continued with their banter. "Well, well. What do we have here, James?"

James looked up from his comm link. "It's not listed in the database, Jessie. But that's no surprise. This place is full of Pokémon the likes I've never seen before."

"Then let's catch it and add it to the others already," shouted Meowth.

Jessie's smile showed teeth. "Yes, lets. Poké Ball, please."

Alf had heard enough. Whatever they had in mind for him he didn't want to have any part of it. Picking up a rock, he threw it. The stone hit Meowth on the paw causing him do drop his sack, which spilled onto the ground and rolled down toward Alf.

While Jessie and James grabbed at rolling Poké Balls with Meowth, Hugo took the opportunity to run for it, leaving his butterfly net.

"I can't find any that I recognize," James complained. "Even my personal ones."

"I think they all got mixed together," said Meowth as he and James tried sorting through them.

"I think you are going to have to use them at random," said James, as he tossed Jessie a Poké Ball.

"But most of these are very recent and not trained. We don't even know their capabilities," she protested.

"Field training. Best thing," answered Meowth. "Or you could just let him get away."

Jessie growled in frustration and threw the red and white ball at Alf. Alf retaliated by picking up one of the Poké Balls that had rolled down the incline to his feet and threw it at her.

Both Poké Balls glowed briefly as something expanded out of each of them.

The creature that came from Jessie's Poké Ball was white and gelatous, with two legs but no arms. In retrospect, it resembled a walking bowling pin. Landing, it glanced around. "Shmoo?" it said.

Alf's Poké Ball opened to reveal an anthropomorphic duck that was about three and a half feet tall, wearing a jacket and tie, and smoking a cigar. "Wak! What's going on?"

"Get him!" shouted Jessie.

The Shmoo bounced and then stretched itself around the startled duck man. "Wak! Get it off!" Howard bent his head down and the red hot tip of his cigar touched against the side of the white morphic creature.

Shmoo broke away like a bottle rocket and headed into the woods looking for something to cool itself. Howard the Duck fell over out of breath and was soon unconscious.

"My turn," said James. He picked up another Poké Ball and tossed toward Alf. Alf, catching on, did likewise.

The Poké Ball that James had loosed emitted a large tiger that was green in color. It roared it's displeasure as Alf's Poké Ball freed a small two-foot long head to tail miniature dragon with wings.

The green tiger pawed the air and the fire-lizard retaliated by shooting fire at the great cat. The little dragon kept up the flames, singing the cat, until it had had enough and leapt into the woods for the nearest source of water.

"I need something with fire-resistance!" shouted Jessie.

"Here's one!" Meowth passed over the Poké Ball. She grabbed and through it without looking at it or thanking Meowth.

What emerged surprised all of them. A robotic form on treads with a vaguely human-like torso spread it's arms. "Johnny 5's alive!"

The small fire-lizard was startled at the sudden appearance and darted around it while trying to burn it.

"Hey! Knock it off, will ya!" said the robot as it waved it's arms around in defense. One of the flailing arms made contact with the small flying lizard and it fell to the ground.

"Aw, it's not disassembled, is it?"

Alf didn't answer the saddened robot's question. Instead, he threw another Poké Ball. Out came a naked mole rat.

Jessie turned to Meowth. "Did you put your lunch in a Poké Ball?"

"Uh." James looked embarrassed. "I collected him. I thought he was kinda cute looking."

"Whatever!" She rolled her eyes in disgust. At least this means we will have beaten that long-snouted furry annoyance."

In annoyance, the naked mole rat, Rufus, charged toward the much larger robot.

The robot, Johnny 5, rolled back in shock.

"Shoot it!" shouted Jessie.

The robot seemed to be confused. "But Johnny 5 is no longer armed and dangerous. Johnny 5 is a pacifist. At least whenever possible."

Rufus leapt onto the grill of the robot and climbed up the torso. Captivity had ticked Rufus off and now was the pay back. Finding an opening, he dove in and began chewing wires. Johnny 5 jerked back and forth, and even rolled over a few of the Poké Balls that were still strewn about, before finally he went limp.

"All right!" shout Alf. "Let's here it for the tiny furless guy!"

Rufus, the naked mole rat, growled at Team Rocket and then charged toward them.

James tossed a ball into the air and an eight-foot tall baby brontosaurus landed right over Rufus. Rufus, startled beyond belief, dug a hole straight down and left the area.

Alf, realizing it was up to him again, reached down for the last of the nearby Poké Balls. In flight, it opened to reveal a seven-foot tall sasquatch.

"Bigfoot!" James and Jessie cried out together, holding each other tight.

Bigfoot roared. The baby brontosaurus, named Dopey by Holly Marshal, followed it's instincts when confronted with a large, dangerous predator. It ran for water.

Bigfoot ignored Dopey, and instead focused on Team Rocket. He charged, not giving them a chance to use any more of their Poké Balls.

"Run!" shouted Meowth. And they did.

"Well, that was different," said Alf. More Poké Balls rolled down the hill toward him, all left due to the haste Team Rocket had to run from Bigfoot.

"So they've been running around here capturing people, animals and who knows what. Probably more in those balls, too." He looked around. "Anyone want to take responsibility here? Anyone at all?" He looked down at the Poké Balls at his feet. "Course not."

It had taken him a little while of studying the little red and white balls before learning enough about them to free those trapped within as well as how to retrap those that proved to troublesome or dangerous like the winged monkey, the fifty-foot anaconda, the six-armed giant white ape, the jabberwocky, and that annoying, aggravating, living toon, Roger Rabbit.

The next fifteen minutes Alf spent releasing captives from the Poké Balls. One of the things he had released had been a three-foot tall fellow covered with so much long hair he couldn't tell which side of him he were facing. Though it seemed to only speak in a high pitch gibberish, Alf seemed to understand him and sent him to work on the robot, Johnny 5. Alf figured they might need the extra protection and the robot looked formidable at the very least.

Three small figures flew past his head causing him to duck reflexively. "Hey! Where's the fire?"

"Sorry, Alf," said Lucy Little. "This flying is wonderful!"

"You should try it," shouted Tom Little while doing flying back flips. "Tinkerbell, here, has lots of that pixie dust."

Alf held up a hand. "Sorry. Gonna just say 'no' to the pixie dust. I need to keep my feet on the ground."

A dragonfly with a six-foot wing span dive bombed out of the trees and darted toward the two flying mouse-like creatures and the pixie who all cried out and flew away.

But before the danger could build it was over before it had even started. A large eagle that Alf had freed earlier swooped down and grabbed the dragonfly in it's deadly claws and carried up to a branch ten feet above everybody disturbing a very angry and very fowl mouth red parrot who quickly flew away. Happily perched, the eagle bit into the tail of the dragonfly and began tearing of morsels to eat.

Alf turned to the centaur archer standing a few feet away. The half man/half horse had agreed to be a part of Alf's protection against hostiles when he had been freed from one of the Poké Balls. "So how come we had to wait for the eagle to catch that thing?" he said. "You aren't still daydreaming about that Pegasus that flew away, are you?"

The centaur scowled and his hooves tore into the ground in anger. "Don't be obscene! They were in no real danger! I had drawn my bow and was ready to fire on the enlarged insect when I saw the eagle make it's move. I decided instantly that it would be better to let nature take it's course."

"And meanwhile those flying kiddies almost became a three-course meal for that thing," snapped back Alf. "Or was that your idea of nature taking it's course again?"

"Bah! If I did not owe you for freeing me, troll, I'd be halfway back to Xanth by now. Still I must perform the duty to Magician Humphrey who sent me here."

"I know. I know. You have to guard the one who frees you until he storms off in frustration! Sounds stupid to me but whatever! We only have a few more of those balls to go through, and then you can start hoofing it. Get it? Hoofing it! Haw!"

The centaur was not amused.

"Oh well. I guess I just have to consider my audience."

"Oh, I thought it was funny."

Alf looked over to see a black cat talking to him. "Oh, it's you again." Salem had been one of the first creatures that Alf had freed from Poké bondage, and the Melmacian would have eaten him, too, if the cat hadn't started asking him why he was starting to build a fire. "What is it with this place and talking cats? About the only cats that I've meet who haven't talked is the green tiger than ran away and that black panther over there."

Salem stopped licking his paws and glanced over at the panther who was regarding them casually. "You know, there's something strange about that cat."

Alf glanced down at the cat. "Have you looked in the mirror lately?"

"Enough!" shouted the centaur. "Free the next creature already."

"Alright! Geez!" Alf picked up a Poké Ball. He looked to the left and then the right. "Fire in the hole!" He pitched it forward.

The ball flew forward and ejected a startled faun – a half man/half goat – who wore a red scarf around his neck.

"Where in Narnia am I?" said the faun, in a frantic state.

"It's not Narnia, kid. It's not Kansas either, in case you were wondering," responded Alf. The faun looked frightened so Alf added, "Don't worry. We're the good guys. We just rescued you."

"Really?" came a strong doubtful voice from the woods opposite them.

The centaur turned with his bow cocked.

Out into the open a man girded in a leather loin cloth and carrying a sword approached. Next to him walked the singed green tiger that had run away earlier.

"I am Dar. And I want to know how my friend Ruh was burned."

Alf held out his hands in protest. "Hey, I can't be held responsible for that. There were mitigating circumstances."

"Such as…" Dar's anger was plain to see and Alf's eyes kept moving back to the sword.

"The troll is an annoying creature but I think he may be right," said the centaur to Dar. "I will let you two talk. Now I will show the faun the way to the stream and then I will be back."

Alf muttered to himself about finding good help. "And I'm not a troll!"

"Ruh says he'd been captured and then forced to fight a flying lizard that breathed fire. A creature that you set upon him."

"Another talking cat? Just great. But hey, there's more to the story than that. I'm the one whose been freeing everyone from those that had captured them. Just ask around."

Dar looked up into the tree at the eagle finishing his dragonfly meal. He called to it and the large flying predator looked down to regard him, and chirped.

Dar regarded Alf again. "Avenger confirms your story."

"Who's Avenger?"

"The eagle."

Alf squinted at him. "You wouldn't be by chance related to a fellow named Doolittle, would you?"

"Who?"

"Never mind. I sense that you are not the literary type."

Dar ignored that. "So you are helping those that had been previously captured?"

They glanced to where a small squashy figure with a glowing chest was raising a glowing finger from the slowly waking form of the anthropomorphic duck.

Alf sighed. "Yeah, I'm Gordon Shumway, but everybody calls me Alf. As for what I've been doing here, well, the job kinda fell on me do to the fact no one else was around to do it."

They looked over to where a loud racket was being made. A large long, white-haired somewhat humanoid creature with brown paws and a musical horn at the top of it's head was playfully honking at another creature who was similarly sized, with a the white body of a long haired white dog but with the brown head of a horse and was neighing.

"Jeep!" Alf called. "Jeep!"

A small creature appeared at Alf's side. He was pink in color, about three feet tall, had a very large nose, a long tail and a round stomach. "Jeep! Jeep!"

"Don't do that!" said a startled Alf. "Listen, Jeep. I need you to pop up there and remind those two to hold down the noise. There's a lot of sharp toothed carnivores around here that would love to know where we all are to gobble us up and we need to keep the noise down so they don't know where we are."

"Jeep jeep jeep jeep jeep jeep! Jeep jeep jeep jeep. Jeep jeep." And then he disappeared to reappear over by the two noise makers.

"And believe it or not I have no idea what he just said."

"Really?" said Dar. "It was pretty clear to me," said Dar, a little surprised himself. "First, he reminded you that his name is Eugene. And then that the two up there are called Honk and Dorse."

"Honk? I'm surprised but it is self explanatory so I can accept it, but Doris? That name just doesn't fit."

"No, not Doris. Dorse. That is because somehow it is the combination of a dog and a horse."

Alf shook his head. "I'm not going to argue with you. You have a green tiger."

Dar patted the tiger at his side. Then noticed how tense it was. Ruh was staring at the black panther. "There's something unusual with that panther."

"I already said that!" said Salem.

"Your cat talks!" Dar said in surprise.

"I'm not his cat and I thought you said you communicated with animals. Why shouldn't I be able to communicate with you, too?"

Alf ignored the interruption. "Are you sure about the panther?" He scratched his chin in contemplation. "So far it's been the most well behaved creature here? What am I saying? That's very suspicious behavior for any cat!"

"Hey!" Salem was affronted.

"Tell us who you are," said Dar to the panther.

Slowly the dark hairs on the panther began to recede. The ears on the top of its head began to move down to the sides of the head. The claws on the paws began to shrink back and flatten as the digits they were connected to extended. Soon there was a blonde naked man lying where the panther once was.

"Anyone have something I can wear?"

"That's the last straw!"

Everybody looked at Alf.

"I mean it! I've had it! I'm going back to the other group I was with! You, oh speaker to everything, can lead them from here on!"

"I don't understand," said Dar.

"I'm saying you can get everybody here to talk to you, while I just aggravate them. So you keep them together. I'm not the Melmacian for the job."

"But-"

"Hoof-head can tell you about the ball prisons. I'll contact you if we discover a way out of this mad, mad, mad, mad world." With that he picked up a few empty Poké Balls and left.

**AUTHOR'S NOTES:**

_If you are wondering what any of these creatures, characters or items look like, go to answers dot com. It's a very good reference site. It's also good for getting info for school research._

_This started off as a cute idea for me as I tried to come up with something for Alf to do alone. Then it hit me. Pokémon. At first it was going to be an encounter with Ash but then I thought something more confrontational. Like Team Rocket. But I didn't really know the Pokémon characters that well, so I decided to see what kind of sci-fi characters I could come up with that could have been mistaken for Pokémons._

_I don't plan to return to this line of thought. This was a just for fun sideline, more or less. Hope you at least enjoyed it. And if you think of some possible creatures or characters that could have been included then I just have to say them must either still be in the remaining Poké balls, have run off somewhere, or just be a few trees away._

_Points of interest. _

_Billy Barty who plays Hugo, the aid to Dr. Shrinker also played Sigmund the Sea Monster. The Shmoo, which originally was a character created in the LIL' ABNER comic Strip back in 1948 was revamped into a very different character in 1979's THE NEW SHMOO to which I grew up with. In the first movie THE BEASTMASTER, Ruh was a tiger that had been dyed green for the movie but in later sequels and the tv show was no longer dyed green._

_If some of these characters or shows are unfamiliar to you, check out _youtube dot com_ or _

answers dot com.

DR. SHRINKER (1976 - 1977)

Hugo – (Billy Barty)

Dr. Shrinker – (Jay Robinson) (mentioned only)

THE LITTLES (1983)

Tom Little – (Donavan Freberg)

Lucy Little – (Bettina Bush)

POKEMON (1998 – present?)

Jessie

James

Meowth

LIL' ABNER (1948)

THE NEW SHMOO (1979)

Shmoo – (Frank Welker)

HOWARD THE DUCK (1986)

Howard

THE BEASTMASTER (1982)

Ruh – green tiger

Dar – Marc Singer

DRAGONRIDERS OF PERN novel series (1968 – present)

Fire-lizard of Pern

SHORT CIRCUIT (1986)

Johnny 5

KIM POSSIBLE (2002 – present?)

Rufus - Naked mole rat

LAND OF THE LOST (1974 – 1977)

Dopey, the baby brontosaurus

BIGFOOT AND WILDBOY (1977 – 1978)

Bigfoot

THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939)

winged monkey

ANACONDA (1997)

Anaconda

JOHN CARTER OF MARS (1911)

the six-armed giant white ape

ALICE IN WONDERLAND (1951)

the jabberwocky

WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT (1988)

Roger Rabbit – (Charles Fleischer)

PETER PAN (1953)

Tinkerbell

BIRDMAN AND THE GALAXY TRIO (1967 – 1969)

Avenger

ALADDIN (1992)

Iago the Parrot – (Gilbert Gottfried)

XANTH Series

Centaur

CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981)

Pegasus

XANTH series

Magician Humphrey (mentioned only)

SABRINA, THE TEENAGE WITCH (1996 – 2003)

Salem – (Nick Bakay)

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE (2005)

The faun

DOCTOR DOOLITTLE (1967)

Dr. John Doolittle – (Rex Harrison)

E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982)

E.T.

FAR OUT SPACE NUTS (1975 – 1976)

Honk - (Patty Maloney)

THE LOST SAUCER (1975 – 1976)

Dorse – (Larry Larsen)

POPEYE (1960 – 1963)

Eugene the Jeep

MANIMAL (1983)

Prof. Jonathan Chase – (Simon MacCorkindale)


	11. Chapter 11

**PART 11 – MASTER FOR A DAY, OR WHO'S UP FOR A BARBECUE**

**ACT 1**

He surveyed the small valley before him with an ominous, calculating eye. Starscream tried pointing out the obvious indications of Borg activity and was waved away as an annoyance.

Behind them, Brainiac and Lex Luthor were setting up a secure base with the Constructicons with the guidance of General Traag. All of this under the cover of a cloaking field that Krang had designed.

While he had been upset to discover the losses his troops had experienced when he had sent some of them out to explore the land while locating the Borg, he was somewhat consoled by the fact that the annoying Dalek had never returned and that the Doctor and whoever he brought with him would have equal difficulty facing the horrors of this place. And while he didn't expect the Doctor to succumb to anything in this wretched place, he would be hurt to seeing his companions fall around him. Then, he would die, for the last time, at the Master's hand.

"Destro is getting into position in the next valley. He will signal us when he is in place and then we can proceed when you are ready, Master," relayed the Toyman.

The Master waved the Toyman away. "Starscream, show me where you have the scouts positioned. Soundwave, Tri-Klops, come with us."

They passed by Skeletor who was having Evil-Lyn mystically seek for Mer-man, Whiplash, Two-Bad and Spikor who had never returned and who the Master suspected never would.

After a few minutes they came upon a small ridge from where they could look down and see the small figures of Borg drones moving in and out of a tunnel like they were ants. Thundercracker was a few yards from them, looking down into the valley. Buzzsaw and Laserbeak were perched upon his shoulders also looking down into the valley.

"What is that? They have dug something up?"

"A vessel of some sort, Master," answered Tri-Klops, after his rotating visor helmet with its three artificial eyes settled on the correct setting for distavision. "Perhaps a space faring vessel, but more likely a water submersible that has been long buried."

The Master nodded sagely. "They are gathering resources in order to construct more equipment and build more drones." He turned to Starscream. "Has there been any other Borg activity?"

Starscream turned toward his fellow Decepticon, Thundercracker. "Thundercracker!" he bellowed. "Any changes in their activity?"

The Decepticon turned to reveal thin grayish tendrils his features as well as those of Buzzsaw and Laserbeak.

"What?" cried Starscream.

"They've been compromised!" shouted the Master as he pulled out his sonic compressing device.

Buzzsaw launched himself into the air toward Starscream, who screamed and smacked him away with an auditable clank of metal. Buzzsaw fell to the ground and Starscream fired multiple rounds into the infected flier.

"I-I-I defeated it! I beat him!" He was both shocked and surprised.

"Protect me!" shouted the Master.

Soundwave stepped in front of the Master and fired a blast into Thundercracker's torso knocking him over the ridge, but that was not a long term solution since the robot in question was one that could fly. Soundwave's chest compartment opened and ejected the hound-like Ravage and the two twins Frenzy and Rumble.

Ravage let out a growl as the canine-like Decepticon leapt onto the oncoming Laserbeak. They tore into each other as Laserbeak spun out of control in the sky. They crashed into a boulder going at nearly a hundred miles an hour just a few yards away from the Master. The boulder was turned to rubble, Laserbeak wasn't functioning and Ravage slowly limped away with what may have been a whimper.

"More approach!" shouted Tri-Klops, pointing to a small path leading up from the small valley that the Borg infested. The Borg drones were just coming into range and then they would be upon them and all of the troops the Master had mustered together. Tri-Klops' visor helmet rotated and he fired a lethal beam of gamma rays at the drones. Some fell dead or were blown back down into the valley.

The Master ran with Rumble right behind him. The Master knew what he needed to survive. He just had to get there and the support he needed to do that had better damn well be there or there would be more than hell to pay. They would all be drones for the Borg Collective and the evil time-lord wasn't sure that even he could escape from such a plight. Somehow, as he ran, he figured out what must have happened. Buzzsaw or Laserbeak must have flown down to do to close of an inspection of the drones and drew their attention. The drones would have been able to quickly remodify the small flier and sent it back to infect the others. Starscream was only spared because he had come to show the Master personally what they were doing and was not there do be taken over.

As Thundercracker flew at them in his form of an F-15 Eagle jet, the Borg enslaved Decepticon fired bursts of energy blasts that knocked Soundwave to the ground alongside Frenzy and continued firing a path toward the fleeing Master.

"Here me come, we lose today!" Bizarro, the faux-Superman, flew straight at Thundercracker and then -with a burst of speed- through him, causing Decepticon pieces to fly through the air.

Beams of light from the drones struck the pseudo Kryptonian who had stopped to watch the metal bits of Thundercracker fall. "Ha! Ha! They like me! They like me! They really like meeeeeeeeee!" Bizarro disappeared as he crashed somewhere out of sight.

Those farther back had to deal with the drones. As the Master glanced back, Tri-Klops and Black Manta were finding that their optic blasts were no longer effective and had to look for cover themselves. Jitsu and Trap-Jaw managed to get in close to the Borg with Jitsu throwing two over the ledge and Trap-Jaw was effectively biting off the prosthetic limb of another drone. The Decepticon robots SpyGlass, Spectro and ViewFinder were merging into their larger Reflector form but that would not prove effective for long.

Evil-Lyn fired mystical bolts at the oncoming drones with great effect until she was stunned. The Master continued on his run past her.

"Regroup at the base of the tower!" he shouted. Rocksteady, who had been dashing toward Evil-Lyn, turned and left her behind. He learned the hard way to follow orders regardless of what they were.

In the distance, he saw Luthor, Brainiac and Krang climbing over the large antenna that the Constructicons had erected. "Turn it on now!" Luthor called out to the others while Brainiac moved to the instrument panel, lifted it up and made more adjustments.

The Cybermen formed a barricade with their bodies about two feet apart and fired at any drone that they saw while allowing the others past them.

"Turn it on!" he shouted.

"Yeah, turn it on!" agreed Rumble.

"Allow a few moments and we will be operational," said the android Brainiac.

Grimacing, the Master turned to some of those hanging around. "You heard, stop them or slow them down!"

General Traag issued orders and the troops moved. Blitzwing rolled out firing in his tank form. Giganta grew to over seventy feet and picked up large boulder to lob at the oncoming drones. Shredder charged with the Foot clan behind him. Skeletor rode on Panthor's back and fired blasts from his staff.

Beast Man was the first to fall stunned with the Cheetah collapsing nearby. The Toyman screamed as the small mini-plane he was flying in was struck and crashed into the ground with the chute opening upon impact.

"My part is done," called Krang.

"What else is there to do?" said the Master, willing to lend a hand to save them all.

"Just what I'm doing up here," responded Luthor, who had his head deep in a large box fifteen feet up in the small tower. "Brainiac already has everything set up so it just lies to me to complete this."

One of the Cybermen exploded, which knocked over a number of people. Giganta, having been struck by many stun beams, staggered and started to fall.

"Stop her! She'll destroy the antenna!"

"Got it!" Captain Cold, firing his cold gun, formed a massive ramp, sliding Giganta's massive frame away from the antenna.

"Try it now, Brainiac." Luthor looked down confidently at those at the control panel.

Brainiac pushed the button and turned a few dials while examining the gauges.

The looming drones were within fifty yards. They slowed as if trying to walk through water. Then, as if a puppets strings were cut, they began to fall or at least stagger incoherently.

The Master glanced around. The devastation wasn't as bad as he had feared. Most of his troops were unscathed. Most could be fixed. "What's the range?"

"Shorter than expected. Only eight hundred and thirty yards due to the rush," said Brainiac. "We should be able to expand the field in the next fifteen minutes."

"Chances of them overcoming it?"

"Unknown. It will be easier to speculate after examining some of the drones currently in the field."

"You will have the opportunity," he said. He nodded toward Rumble.

"What?" exclaimed the short robot. "You want me to bring some of those things here?"

"There is no danger right now," said Luthor.

Rumble turned and grumbled.

"We used your plans and made a few improvements."

"Improvements?" The Master raised an eyebrow.

Lex nodded. "The frequency that we are using to block their hive network is in constant flux, but without a pattern. We have added receivers and monitors to search for their signal so that if they do find a way to modify their signal, we will be prepared to automatically block it.

The Master nodded. "Very good."

Krang walked over in his exo-suit. "I've called Destro and Zorak back. They haven't had an encounter with the Borg. They will also-"

"You did what!?!"

"Ah, I-I thought you wanted your troops together. To secure this position, Master."

"I might as well now, you fool. The Borg would have monitored for that call and now know their location."

"But-"

"Cease your excuses!" he snapped. "Do not overstep your bounds again, Krang. Or I will crush you like a grape!"

He turned to Luthor. "When Destro gets back – if he gets back – have Dr. Mindbender work on some of our captive drones with you. I want to see if we can restore some of them to their former selves and gain some useful allies. Some of our forces were already injected with their nano-probes so it should be easy enough to figure out. We should also see if we can use some of them as some type of Trojan horse to destroy them from within."

He left to think, leaving his minions to start up their assigned projects

**ACT 2**

"Pass the skunk cabbage."

He did so with relief. "Here."

"Have a leg," said a woman to his right.

He held out his plate and she put a two-foot long smoking spider's leg on his plate. "Um, thank you?" was all he could think to say.

"Make sure to try the toad stool sauce. It's an old family recipe."

He managed a grin and nodded.

From behind him a large lumbering fellow came over with a plate of what looked like the largest crab claws he'd ever seen. "Here you go. Guests first." The large man put two of the massive claws on his plate.

"Thank you," he managed to say.

_What am I doing here_? Rincewind wondered to himself. Oh, he knew who had brought him here. He just had to look over the Velociraptors egg soufflé to see the personification of Death, whom Rincewind had come to know too well, at least in his opinion. He even knew why he was here. Because they had wanted a fourth player for a game with clubs. He had tried explaining to them he wasn't any good at cards but that just caused the smoking fellow to laugh uproariously.

But how had he come to this land? He had been minding his own business walking the streets of Ankh-Morpork when an elderly Troll, half blind by the quartz that had formed around his eyes, bumped into him. He hadn't been hurt too much by the Troll's rocky exterior, but the old Troll raised up a holler claiming he had been attacked. At the sight of the older Troll's family pouring down the street towards him like an avalanche, Rincewind had taken to his heels. He ran right past Death who was examining a small hourglass. Trolls were not known for checking out the facts and once they got moving they wouldn't stop to check to see that he had on a pointy hat or read the letters on it spelling W-I-Z-Z-A-R-D. People and even Trolls tended to avoided messing with people in pointy hats in much the same way they avoided being turned into a frog.

After running down a few streets and down a few back alleys he finally managed to lose his pursuit by ducking in a small oblong building that was only one room. His arrival had evidently scared away a few of the local Thieves Guild who were about to try take out the glowing crystals that were on a pedestal. Rincewind just cowered there until he heard the familiar sound of hundreds of little feet. He glanced over at the doorway to see a troll's rocky form knocked over by rampaging traveling trunk.

As he peeked over the pedestal, he could see bits of rock and possibly mortar fall around the opening. Yells and general outcries could be heard along with a great deal of scraping.

"YOUR LUGGAGE CAN BE VERY TENATIOUS."

Rincewind gulped. He knew of only one being that could speak like that. He looked over at Death. "You still here? Didn't I just leave the range of mortal danger a few blocks back?"

Death shrugged. While he didn't technically have to be there to free each person or whatevers life essence at their time of demise, he did have to arrive each time a wizard was in mortal peril, just in case. Wizards were special.

"I am no longer in great danger, am I?"

"NOT RIGHT NOW."

Hearing a noise, Rincewind turned as he heard something at the doorway, but it turned out to just be his Luggage coming in to check in him. In some ways he considered the Luggage to be like an unwanted yet very loving dog that follows him everywhere. In others, it was like having a defensive, homicidal manic that takes out anyone that even looks annoyed at Rincewind. The Luggage looked at first like any other chest someone might have. However, on closer inspection, underneath the chest revealed hundreds of little legs that could move at fantastic speeds. The Luggage itself was made from sapient pearwood which also made it impervious to magic and a few other indiscernible abilities which was because no one dared get to close to the animated baggage to learn what exactly they were.

Rincewind sighed. "For a moment there I thought I was in danger again."

The door to the pylon closed.

"AND NOW YOU ARE."

And it had been one dangerous situation after another after arriving to this strange land that had rules that were unknown to him. He had become separated from his Luggage and Death. There had been giant lizard creatures that didn't quite look like dragons, spiders, man-eating plants and quicksand. And then Death had come and invited him to dinner.

"So, Rincewind, what exactly do you do for a living."

He nodded as he wiped his lips from the tadpole soup he had just sampled. It wasn't that bad. "Um, yes, well, I'm on staff at the Unseen University at Ankh-Morpork."

"Oh, really," said one of the women. "What do you do there?"

"Uh, well, I have a couple titles there. Let's see. I'm the Professor of Virtual Anthropology and the Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography. I'm also the Chair of Experimental Serendipity and the Public Misunderstanding of Magic. Um, Reader in Slood Dynamics. Let me see. There's a few more. Fretwork Teacher (don't ask). An assistant Librarian. Much tougher than you'd think. Oh, and Lecturer in Approximate Accuracy."

"Lecturer in Approximate Accuracy?" said Herman Munster. "Why, you are the perfect person we need for our golf game." He turned away and then turned back. "I'm just going to go tell Gomez."

"Herman," said Morticia. "Would you mind asking my husband to keep an eye out for Cousin Itt? He should have been back hours ago."

Herman nodded. "Will do." He turned and left, hurrying over to where Gomez and his butler Lurch were turning large torsos of meat on a spit over a blazing fire.

"You know, I dabble in the dark arts some myself," said the one everyone called Grandpa. He really made Rincewind feel nervous. The old man was obviously a vampire and yet here he sat in direct sunlight, eating foods that included alcohol soaked tomatoes, onions and garlic. And most maddening of all was that he didn't talk in that awful Überwald accent all vampires seemed to pick up regardless of where they originated.

"Grandpa! He might not want to talk shop at the table."

The old vampire frowned. "Fine. No hocus pocus on this trip." He folded his arms in a sulk. "Killjoy."

He picked up a small hammer that had been placed next to his knife. Evidently, this was to be used to open the claws. He tapped experimentally on the claw with no result. He took the claw off the plate and smacked it hard. Still no results.

A hand reached out of a small box on the table and took the hammer out of his. With a flick of it's wrist the claw shell cracked to pieces revealing the savory meat inside.

Morticia nodded to the hand. "Thank you, Thing." The hand put down the small hammer and then retreated to it's box, closing the lid behind it. "It's all in the wrist," she explained.

"Er, thank you?"

He looked across the table at Death who had evidently just said something funny because everyone was laughing, including Death.

"Oh my, you really must slay people at parties," gasped Lily.

"ON OCCASION." This seemed to bring about another series of laughs. Then he had it. That was what was bothering him. These people actually liked Death. They weren't the religious sacred type. They were the 'sit down on the sofa and discuss matters over milk and cookies' type of comfortable with Death.

Even worse, the kids, Pugsley, Wednesday and Eddie were playing with his Luggage. And as the Luggage chased them around the clearing, it would open its lid to reveal lots of big square teeth and a long red tongue that would wrap around them and suck them in one by one as they screamed in delight. And after it had swallowed all of them, it would open up and let them climb out in order to start all over again.

There were street hardened serial killers that ran at first sight of his Luggage. Trolls would usually give it passage. Dwarves made sure not to accidentally point something sharp or pointy in its general direction because if they did they could kiss their beards goodbye.

How could-? And then he thought he knew. "Oh no."

"RINCEWIND? IS SOMETHING TROUBLING YOU?"

"I think I've figured it out. I've died, haven't I? I'm dead and you didn't have the decency to tell me! That's why no one here is afraid of you. It's because they're already dead."

Death looked a little embarrassed. He stepped up from the table and led him toward the barbecue.

"SOME OF THE PEOPLE HERE ARE ALIVE. SOME ARE UNDEAD. HERMAN IS CONSIDERED PSEUDO-ALIVE."

Rincewind shivered as Death had put his bony arm over the wizard's shoulder. "So, uh, I'm not dead."

"NOT YET."

He gulped. "Then, ah, where on A'Tuin's shell have you taken me?"

"YOU HAVE IT WRONG. YOU BROUGHT ME HERE. AND WE ARE NOT ON THE DISCWORLD."

"We're not? Then where are we?"

"SOMEWHERE ELSE. AND SINCE WE ARE HERE I'VE DECIDED TO TAKE A HOLIDAY."

"But-but-but-but-but-but you're Death!" he sputtered.

"OH, I'LL DO A LITTLE WORK WHILE HERE. SO IF YOU HAVE AN ACCIDENT, DON'T WORRY. I'LL BE HERE FOR YOU."

Rincewind began to tremble.

"Hey! Look who I found!" shouted the bald form of Fester. At his side was a three-foot figure of long hair with sunglasses on.

"I wonder if the Dungeon Dimensions are anything like this?" Rincewind asked whimsically.

**AUTHOR'S NOTES:**

_Going to have the baby any day now which is why I've been trying to write like crazy since I'm not as tense when I'm writing. The distraction helps._

_Hope you like my first encounter between the Borg and the Master's army. It's going to get more hairy._

_As for the Addams-Munsters picnic with Death, Rincewind and his Luggage – well, I'm building to my special moment with the._

_Until next time._


	12. Chapter 12

**A TANGLED WEB 8 Part 12**

**ACT 1**

The area around the long buried ARK II had been pretty muck cleared. They had worked diligently and were taking a break from the hot sun, indulging in the food and water gathered by Cha-Ka and Will, which consisted mostly of roots, berries, a few bananas, three large reptile eggs and a couple of small lizards. The Cat, degusted at the fare, took one of the lizards and snubbed the rest of the fare.

Nearby, the man known only as Number Six stood guard with the enigmatic woman Max over the scowling form of the Spider Queen who they had managed to capture.

The Jupiter II Robot and Kryten approached the weary people who were resting in the shade of the nearby trees.

Kryten began. "We have restored some of the archaic footage from the ARK II. It explains some of what has happened here but much still remains a mystery."

"The ARK II comes from a parallel Earth where pollution and nuclear war had devastated the environment by the mid twenty-first century," said the Jupiter II robot. "Three people – two men, Jonah and Samuel, and a woman, Ruth, – were sent out by a surviving group of scientists along with an augmented intelligent chimpanzee named Adam." He turned and extended one of his arms to the old decrepit shell. "They used this all-terrain vehicle to find discover the extent of the devastation to the land and find survivors in order to help rebuild civilization. According to their video journals they had been doing that for over a decade before landing here."

"That's all good and fine," snapped Dr. Smith who was eating one of the bananas. "But how did they get here?"

"That information is not included in what we recovered, sir," answered Kryten. "However, things allude to those events and explain a few other things."

Alf threw a rock at a loud tree frog but missed. "Does it really matter to us? I mean, it's just an old rusted out RV. What are we going to do with it?"

"It Ark." Cha-Ka looked at everyone as if that explained everything.

The Cat stood up and did a little swirl on his toes. "I'm with aardvark-nose on this one. That thing isn't even fit to be a litter box."

"Perhaps if you listen to the recording, you will learn for a change," said the robot. Behind him, Dr. Smith chuckled, enjoying someone else getting the barbs from the robot.

The Cat was indignant. "Did the bubble-headed doohickey just dis me?"

Will stood up to be peacemaker. "Robot, Kryten, why don't you please just show us what you found? And would someone please dangle the long string for Cat again?"

"Very well, sir." Kryten turned to an unoccupied space and emitted a holographic projection ten feet away through his open mouth. Meanwhile, Lister picked up a long string which was actually a long piece of webbing from the Spider Queen's earlier attack and dangled it much to the Cat's delight.

The color wasn't the best and at times the picture or sound seemed to fade or crackle but it seemed to work. A dark haired beautiful woman of possible Asian descent, most likely Ruth, was speaking to them. On here lap sat a graying chimpanzee eating a strawberry that was as large as his head.

"_-been here eight days in this enigmatic land. We still have no idea where we are. Samuel has suggested…" _She shook her head as if she couldn't believe what she was about to say. _"It sounds impossible, but we might have been thrown back in time. We have scanned the atmosphere repeatedly. There is little trace of pollutants and no trace of radioactivity or seismic activity. Plus, this morning we encountered a mammoth and a giant sloth. Both species have been extinct for millions of years by our reckoning. And yet-" _The projection ended.

"That was helpful!" snorted the sarcastic Arnold Rimmer.

"There's more," said Kryten and began playing the next restored recording segment.

"_ARK II log, entry number 7453815. Jonah speaking. We have been in this new land 28 days now."_ The speaker was a blonde well-built man with a beard that was starting to gray._ "The answers we get only seem to create more questions for us. The Altrusians have determined to leave us alone for now. It was only luck that got us into their good graces. They aren't very big on caring for others, charity or kindness. Besides, they have bigger concerns than us. I think that they –"_

That clip ended and Kryten continued to the next recovered footage.

The woman that was most likely Ruth was back giving a report._ "-the pylons. The crystals inside seemed to somehow control the sun, weather, gravity and perhaps more. We've learned -" _She paused and started to sob._ "We may be inside some type of pocket universe or something that has been built by someone or something for some purpose we can't even guess. We just want to go home! Why are we being kept here?" _Someone off screen called to her and she turned off the recorder.

The recording started again with a different man in the screen who seemed to be of European and Hispanic descent.

"_This is Samuel recording ARK II log number 7453864. Day 59 in this crazy land. Wow. Seems longer than that. Met the Pakuni again. Their matriarch seemed to like me. We exchanged food gifts and an assortment of other presents. We are still working on the language barrier. I think that is what the matriarch likes most about us. We present an interesting mental challenges for her like learning our language and our customs. We still haven't found Jonah, but the Pakuni have volunteered to help. I'm worried that-" _

It ended.

Dr. Smith looked at Cha-Ka. "So the females of your species run everything. I suppose that explains some of your behavior.

Cha-Ka scratched his head, confused. "Female?"

Will patted Cha-Ka on the shoulder. "He's talking about the female Pukani, Cha-Ka. Like your mother."

"No female Pucani. Cha-Ka's mother last. Died when Cha-Ka very small."

"Then you are the last of your kind," said Will, in surprise.

Alf placed a hand on Cha-Ka's other shoulder. "Not to worry, kid. I'm in the same boat that you are. We'll get through it together, okay?"

Cha-Ka, not understanding the full ramifications of what was being said, nodded with a smile.

Rimmer, who had always had a fascination with alien life, at least the myth of it, coughed politely. "Um, so what did happen to your people?" he asked Alf.

"Oh, you know the scenario. Planet blows up and the last surviving alien rockets to Earth where he/she/it becomes adopted into the family that finds them."

"I think I kinda understand," said Lister. "Where I'm from I'm the last Human alive."

"Seems to be a lot of that going around, Lister," said Rimmer. "You should feel right at home here."

"Smeg off, Rimmer!" Retorted Lister.

"Oh that note I think we should continue with viewing the recording." Kryten then opened his mouth to resume holo-projecting.

Ruth, looking ill, was there again in mid-conversation.

"_-have become more complicated. The Altrusians have found a number of their people murdered. And since we and the Pukani are both new to this land, we are being blamed. Also, I can't deny it any longer. I'm pregnant. I just wish I could have told Jonah before he disappeared." _She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair to get it away from her eyes._ "Adam has disappeared, too. Poor chimp. He's either lost or eaten by some horrible beast out there_." She turned and threw up into a container while managing to hold her hair back. She gasped. _"Sorry about that. One of the glorious perks of being pregnant. Being constantly nauseous. Ugh. Samuel is out scouting with R.J. Spencer. I don't know if we can trust R.J., but I don't know if we can afford not to. Tomorrow we will be close to the stone house he has built and we will get to meet his daughter, Jessica and his associate, Kaz who R.J. claims is a real minotaur. I feel I'll be able to trust Mr. Spencer more when I see his teenage daughter. As for the minotaur thing…well, they say seeing is believing so-"_

Samuel was back on the screen. He looked tired and in need of a shave. _"-day 76 in this land. We have been scouring the land looking for signs of either Jonah or Adam. I took the Jet Jumper out for most of the day yesterday. We won't be able to use it for any great distances until we can manufacture more fuel for it. R.J. and Kaz have been gathering supplies for a long hike on the mountain trails. I'll be taking Ruth and Jessica for a drive in the lower valley in the Ark Roamer. Hopefully this will yield something positive."_ A noise caused him to look out a window where shouting could be heard and he chuckled. _"Sometimes we wonder who is more bullheaded – R.J. or Kaz?_" He shook his head and turned back to the camera. His thoughts seemed to sober him. _"Ruth has grown attached to Jessica very quickly. I'm glad. She needs someone she can focus her attention on. And I'm glad she has another female to talk with. She is-"_

The image on the screen changed, and now there were two women. One was Ruth and the young teenager was evidently Jessica. Both looked terrified.

"_Something killed Samuel while he was on guard duty during the night. R.J. went to help and is now in critical condition. Whatever it was it was just outside the ARK II when it attacked, waking us up, then a second intruder attacked the thing that killed Samuel." _She paused and the two females hugged for comfort._ "Both creatures seemed to be the same species; one much larger than the other one. They had tough looking exoskeletons, a bony beak and large ball joints that made it almost look comical. The shorter one seemed to be the aggressor and the larger one beat it back ferociously. Both wanted to kill each other. Finally the younger retreated. The larger one turned to us sniffing. Then it quickly entered the ARK II using Samuel's key and carried R.J. in and treated him with the medical supplies. Somehow it knew where everything was."_

She paused in thought._ "We didn't dare go near it and it didn't look or speak to us. As soon as it finished setting bones, stitching close gashes, injecting antibiotics and a few painkillers, it turned and left. Tomorrow, after Kaz gets back from his hunting trip, I'm going to ask the Altrusians what these creatures are. Maybe it is what has been killing their people. Maybe it already killed Jonah." _She turned off the recorder with a trembling hand.

"What is this? A monster movie?" demanded the Cat. "It's not very good and I've got no popcorn."

"There is more," said the robot. "Much will be made clear."

"Then show it already," demanded Alf. "But I gotta tell you right now. Alfred Hitchcock this is not."

The projection began again as Ruth moved away from where she had turned it on and them moved to the side of the small room which was almost off-camera to cower with Jessica. Ruth aimed a flare gun at the nearby door. The door shuddered and was forced open. A small, hairless, beaked figure hurried in and then paused to regard them_. "Be not afraid. I mean you no harm."_

"_Who are you?" _shrieked Ruth, who was close to absolute terror. The flare gun shook considerable in her hands, but she kept it pointed at the creature in front of her.

The intruder cocked it's head slightly to the left as it regarded her. _"Though I have changed, you knew me as Adam."_

Disbelief crossed Ruth's face, while confusion was on Jessica's. Rimmer leaned close to Lister. "Who's Adam?"

Annoyed, Lister whispered back. "He was the monkey."

"Monkeys can talk?" exclaimed Rimmer. Everyone shushed him.

The beaked creature seemed to chortle._ "After all you have seen here, can you really doubt the possibility?"_

Ruth shook her head in disbelief. _"But how?"_ She kept the flare gun pointed in front of her.

"_I will explain what I can. It is not necessary to keep it a secret."_ The leathery plated creature found a place to sit near the door so that he could see anything coming to enter the room. _"This land is designed to periodically bring other life forms to this place to see how they would interact. The Altrusians were among the earliest to be brought here and they thrived. A few months before we were brought here on the ARK II, the Pakuni arrived. Various Pakuni groups had arrived on Earth after being brought their Pak Protectors as an effort to save them from the eventual death of their world. One of these groups, along with its Pak Protector, was randomly brought here."_

"_I've meet the Pakuni,"_ spoke Jessica. _"They were nice to me. But I never heard of a Pak Protector."_

"_A Pak Protector is what I have become,"_ said the mutated chimp. _"The Pakuni are a species that come from the center of the galaxy where the stars are more closely packed together which also results in more mutations and evolutional changes in their species. Some grew intelligent, some were only as intelligent as animals. Some were herbivores, some were carnivores, some were omnivores, while still others just ate whatever dead creatures they could find. In general, the Pak people had become as diverse as the many type of insects found on Earth. The Pak people have three stages of development: Child, Breeder and Protector. The first two, Child and Breeder, I'm sure you understand. The third stage of development, the Protector, is the most crucial for a species survival."_

Jessica and Ruth glanced at each other, unsure of what to think or ask.

Adam continued. _"When a Breeder reaches the end of it's cycle-."_ He paused in consideration_. "When a breeder begins to gray and become old, there is a smell that will suddenly become apparent to him. This aroma will drive all other thoughts from the Breeder's brain and will draw it to where it originated. The Breeder will go to a bush called the Tree-of-Life and forge among it's roots for a type of yam that it grows and consume it. This yam contains a symbiotic virus that triggers the transformation into a Pak Protector."_

"_Shouldn't the virus only work on the Pak species?"_ asked Jessica, who forgot for a moment just how scared she was.

Adam chortled again. _"It seems the Humans of Earth and the Pak species are related. Or at least so genetically similar that the virus reacts in the same way."_

Ruth asked the question she dreaded. _"But why did one Protector kill Samuel and another Protector drive off the killer?"_

Adam nodded in a chimp-like manner though his beak-like face revealed no other emotions_. "Now you are asking the right questions. But to answer that would put us a little ahead of what must be explained. When a Protector is made it's skin forms into a leathery exoskeleton, it's genitalia vanish and a second two-chambered heart forms in the groin, fingernails become retractable claws, the senses of smell increase exponentially, a bony beak forms in place of the mouth causing all of the teeth fall out and the strength of the breeder increased to about ten times what it had previously been. Most significantly, however, is the brain."_ He tapped his large bony cranium. _"The skull expands to give room for the growing brain. The intellect increases to such a degree that even if the Breeder started out with the intellect of a farm cow it would increase to a measure far beyond that of all the geniuses of Earth."_

Ruth looked at him in confusion. _"That doesn't explain about the two Protectors."_

Adam nodded. _"Some things are so complex that they have to be explained in stages. Bear with me, Ruth. There is-"_

The picture fuzzed briefly and there was a collective groan from the viewers but it continued again with the subjects in the same positions.

"_-mind of a Protector is focused to an almost previously unperceived determination and clarity. And will go to any lengths to ensure their descendants continuation. And that is their biggest stumbling block."_

"_I don't understand,"_ said Ruth.

"_A Pak Protector will kill the Children and Breeders of other species so that their own species can thrive."_

"_But-but they are all the same species!"_

Adam shook his head. _"That does not matter to a Pak Protector. If a Pak Protector smells a genetic anomaly among his own offspring, a mutation, the Protector will kill it to keep the gene pool from becoming contaminated."_

Jessica was aghast. _"That's horrible!"_

"_A Protector does not care about what is horrible. A Protector is just driven to do what it feels is best for it's children."_

"_Wait! Did the Protector kill all of those Altrusians?"_

Adam nodded. _"Yes. It felt driven to protect it's charge from a dangerous rival. It has also been killing a number of other large animal predators in the area, too."_

Jessica looked puzzled. _"If the first Protector Ruth saw came to kill us, why did the second Protector defend us?"_

Adam regarded them for a moment. _"Because the defending Protector was Jonah. And Ruth carries his child."_

Wide-eyed, Ruth gasped. _"I'd thought he was dead! I thought this horrible place had killed him!"_

"_He smelled the Tree-of-Life and was drawn to it just as I later stumbled onto it. We both were changed and became Protectors."_

Ruth raised the flare gun and pointed it directly at him again. "_We aren't your species," _she said. _"Are you here to kill us?"_

"_A reasonable assumption,"_ said Adam. _"But no. Even if there had been any chimpanzees around I would not have been bonded to them because of the genetic changes that had been preformed on me by your scientists to make me more intelligent. So no, I am not here to kill you. There is another position a Protector can take if there are no children for it to guard. The childless Protector can either starve itself to death or it can choose to take on all of the Pak species under its protection as I have done."_

Jessica and Ruth were unsure. It was an unusual story to say the least. _"Why was Samuel killed?"_

"_To keep from breeding, of course. It is the usual precaution for a Protector to ensure no rivals rise to challenge his children."_

Ruth swallowed. _"So Jonah is alive and well?"_

"_When I last saw them they were both mortally wounded from fighting each other. Both knew what I was and asked me to save their kin."_

Ruth cried out anew as the screen fuzzed again. When it cleared again the mutated chimp was speaking again. _"-learned enough of the controls to start a flood to wipe out the creatures living in the valleys."_

"_But that will kill the Pakuni as well,"_ pointed out Ruth.

Adam shook his head. _"Their Protector had already planned to herd his people up to the mountain areas where it had stored supplies to last until the waters retreated."_

"_So they don't know about the coming flood?"_ asked Jessica.

"_No. I will go to them after leaving you."_

"_What about the Altrusians?"_ asked Jessica.

"_They are not my concern."_

Ruth and Jessica were horrified. _"Not your concern?"_

"_They are not of the same genetic stock so I will not make any attempts to safe them. In fact, since they are a threat to your survival I would try to kill them myself if I was able."_

"_Adam! That monstrous!"_

"_Wait."_ Jessica held up a hand. _"Why wouldn't you be able to kill them? You would survive the flood, right?"_

"_Ah, perceptive child. I would survive the flood. I may even survive after the waters recede. But not much longer after that."_

"_Protectors have short life spans?"_

"_Quite the opposite,"_ answered the modified simian. _"A Protector can live for ten or perhaps hundreds of thousands of years if it still had the Tree-of-Life to consume."_

"_The flooding will kill the Tree-of-Life? Is that what you are saying?"_ asked Ruth.

"_Most likely, but that is beside the point. The essential ingredient, the symbiotic virus, appears to not thrive in this soil. The same thing was happening back on the alternate Earth that the Pakuni Protector had come from. If a Protector cannot eat of the Tree-of-Life, it will die."_

Realization hit Ruth. _"That is why the other Protector is trying to kill all possible threats with a flood. It knows it will be dead soon and it wants to take away all the dangers it can while it is still possible."_

"_Correct, Ruth."_ Adam nodded. _"Now I must go to the Pakuni and lead them into the high country."_

"_Can't you stop the flood?"_ Jessica said.

Adam paused_. "Possible. But I do not know where the location for the controls are or how they work. The Pakuni Protector would not reveal these things to me knowing that I might choose to stop it, but that I would save it's descendants if that was the only opportunity left to me. I could not attempt to do both."_

"_We could use the ARK II to rescue the Pakuni while you try stopping the flood,"_ suggested Ruth.

The screen faded. When it cleared it showed Ruth looking tired, ragged and wet, but there was an air of excitement about her. In the background R.J Spencer was being helped to his feet by a tall minotaur and an unknown man under the guidance of Jessica. Ruth turned briefly to them as they left off screen. _"I don't know what day this is. The flooding lasted for days. The Pakuni Protector had evidently set up a delayed portal set to open and pour in ocean water as well as causing torrents of rain."_ She shook her head. _"The only good thing was that we couldn't hear all the cries of terror and death due to the thunderous sound of the pouring water."_

"_After dropping off the Pakuni I took the ARK II down to see if I could save any of the Altrusians but Adam caught up with me. He must have realized what I would do and came to stop me. I was fortunate that he didn't want to harm me. During the encounter with Adam, the ARK II was caught in a mudslide and almost fell into the racing waters. It's now on a ledge and I don't know how long it will stay here. It may fall into the water yet, so we will take what we can and seal it shut with hope that we can find it later. I don't know what happened to the Altrusians. They may be dead or stuck in air pockets down in their underground tunnels."_

"_Adam is in a coma. We don't know if he'll live. Last night our camp was attacked by what I can best describe as a Yeti, an honest to goodness abominable snowman. Adam killed the attacker but he was seriously injured himself."_

"_Meanwhile, the water portal had inadvertently let in more than just water. A U.S. submarine named SSRN Seaview was pulled in along with its crew. I've discussed our situation with Adm. Harriman Nelson. He couldn't believe it at first but then he sailed his sub down the massive straight watery path that now flowed between the mountains and after traveling around thirty-five miles he found that we were there in front of him. At first he thought it was a trick, but after four more attempts he had to give in to our explanations. I didn't help matters any that his ship had previously been in pursuit of a pirate sub which may be trapped here as well."_

"_Lt. Comdr. Chip Morton, an officer on the Seaview has come up with a radical idea. Using the sensors of the Seaview along with some of the sensor equipment borrowed from the ARK II, he proposes to create a device to detect where the water portal is and then propel the Seaview back through it to their world."_ She looked down for a moment. _"R.J., Jessica and I will go with them to make the attempt. Kaz has decided to stay and look after the Pakuni while searching for his own way home. I hope he finds it. As for us, I believe the Seaview comes from a parallel world that is similar to ours. It sounds like there will be many similarities but the Great Disaster on my world has not occurred there and with the information I carry maybe it never will."_

An explosion could be heard off screen. Jessica ran back inside. _"It's the pirate sub! It's attacking! And the mud above us is starting to give way! The ARK II will be buried! Come on!"_

Ruth barely had time to grab a bag as she was pulled out of the ARK II by Jessica. After a few moments things in view began to tumble around the inside of the ARK II and then the recording stopped.

Kryten closed his mouth now that the projecting was over and adjusted his jaw.

"So that's it then, is it?" said Lister. He and the others were shifting where they sat from being too comfortable.

"That was all that was recovered in regards to the time in this land," responded the robot.

Although we do have a nice sampling of their logs from their earlier journeys. Would you like to view those as well?" offered Kryten hopefully.

Rimmer was the first to his feet. "You mean, do we want our minds to implode more than they already have? Then, no, dear God, no. Save it for a day when we all feel like, um-" He turned to Lister. "What's that thing the Japanese chaps do when they stick a sword in their gut and swish it all around?"

"Die?" suggested Lister.

Rimmer, seeing the Lister wouldn't be any help, stormed away.

"Hey, you made goal-post head go away. Good job." Cat bowed in approval

Will wasn't sure what to think. He wasn't used to adults acting this way. Except for Dr. Smith, that is. "So what do we do now?"

"Now," said Cat, "we find something better to eat than these small lizards and berries. Then we eat until we are stuffed. Then when the rest of you all go to sleep, I head over to the little lady guarding the spider crone and see if she'd like to find out how loud I can purr."

"Cat!" But Lister was so disgusted with him he couldn't think of what to say.

Will tried again. "Shouldn't we try to figure out how this information is useful to us?"

"Ark saves!" agreed Cha-Ka.

"Yeah, it saved your people hundreds of years ago," agreed Alf, "but I don't think it'll help us now."

The young Paku considered what he had said and found he couldn't agree with him. "Ark saves!"

"But what have we learned?" Will tried again.

The Cat did a spin and added his two cents. "That monkey-boy Cha-Ka here is related to you all. But I knew that already." He tapped his nose. "The nose does not lie."

Ignoring the Cat, Dr. Smith added his thoughts. "We learned that this place can be flooded." He glanced around for an invisible rising water line. "Shouldn't we conclude this discussion after we have reached higher ground?"

"No, Dr. Smith." Will shook his head. Adults could be so exasperating. Especially when they weren't acting like adults. "We learned that this place was made. That it brings people and animals from different worlds and time periods, probably to see how they react to one another. Now what are we going to do about that?"

Alf rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "So you are suggesting we should be looking for whoever is running this show, even though the evidence suggests that this place is thousands of years old?"

"Fppt!" Lister blew through his teeth. "Naw, man! The makers of this place have to be long dead. This is one of those scenarios where we need to look for is the main control room and face the age-crazed sentient computers that now run the place."

Kryten and the Jupiter II robot turn to Lister. "And, sir, why does it have to be sentient computer that's taken over everything?"

"It could more likely be a crazed immortal humanoid with a sadistic god complex," pointed out the robot.

Dave Lister held up his hands. "Ease off! I was just speculating, alright?"

Kryten and the robot turned away in an appearance of disgust.

Dr. Smith tisked. "Those two won't be any help for a while, the ungrateful wretches. Man built the automatons, but are they grateful? No! Just full of surly retorts!"

Lister frowned. He found that Dr. Smith to be too much like Rimmer for his taste. "They have developed sentience. They are entitled to their opinions. Unfortunately that also means they may not be very helpful right now."

Cha-Ka jumped up and down. "Marshals help!"

Dr. Smith tilted his head back and looked down his nose at the excited Paku. "Ah, yes. The elusive Marshal clan. You do comprehend that they can't help us if we can't find them, don't you?"

Cha-Ka looked angry and hurt. Will Robinson patted him on the shoulder. "He's right, Cha-Ka. We need to find the Marshals to see if they can help us. Maybe they will know more about the ARK II as well.

Cha-Ka sat down on a nearby rock and put his right elbow on his knee while using his hand to hold up his head in the classic thinker position. "Cha-Ka think of something. Cha-Ka wishes for more help.

Just then a red glowing figure walked into the clearing.

**ACT II**

Fighting the pull of the cold water, Bossk crawled feebly toward the shore. The cold was making him lethargic, but that was the least of his concerns. The Trandoshan bounty hunter was cut in numerous places including just over one of his eyes and he had constantly wipe the blood away. His knife wound in his gut from the Star Fleeter had reopened some and was compounded by the fact that going over the waterfalls had cracked some of his ribs as well as wrenched his shoulder horribly.

He was using his good arm to pull himself toward the shore when he noticed a pair of boots right in front of him. Even more alarming someone wearing the boots was looking down at him.

Before he could rationalize what to say or do someone had lifted him up by his good arm to the point that he was dangling. At first glance, Bossk thought that it was a Human, but then he noticed the robotic features under the damaged areas of it's face and one of it's arms.

"What are you?" said the cyborg in a monotone voice devoid of emotion.

"Bounty hunter." It was the first thing to come to his rattled brain.

"What is your species?"

Bossk glanced at the cyborg again through his unbloodied eye. "Trandoshan."

"Why are you here?"

"Job. Hunting prey."

The cyborg seemed to take a moment to process that. "I am looking for a woman named Sarah Connor." It paused before adding, "A Human woman. Have you seen her?"

Bossk considered the opportunity. "There were _cough_ three women in the group that I was hunting. Don't know names. Hair colors were brunette, auburn and blonde. Could be one was _cough_ your Sarah Connor."

The cyborg regarded him, which Bossk took as a good sign. "I'm not very fit to travel. My shoulder is out and-"

The cyborg lowered him to the ground where Bossk found that he could stand albeit with some swaying involved.

The cyborg a hand on his shoulder and then another on his elbow.

He became very concerned. "What are yo-"

_crunch_

His arm popped back into place followed by immediate amounts of pain. "By the dregs of Kestle!" He panted as his sight began to return. Without being aware of it he had grabbed out with his other arm onto the cyborg to steady himself. That was when he noticed that the blaster rifle that the cyborg had strapped over his shoulder was the one that had belonged to IG-88. The cyborg went up in the bounty hunter's estimation from being an oddity to being something very dangerous. "What are you?"

"A T-800 cyborg unit."

"What is your primary function?"

Before the cyborg could answer, three quills imbedded themselves in the side of the cyborg's face.

The Terminator unit, ignoring the quills, turned to deal with the assault. Just at the woods edge along the shore, dark little eyes sparkled along with their sharp teeth. More of the small figures began rolling to group for the anticipating feast. The Crites were hungry.

The cyborg walked toward the little foot tall ball creatures with the toothy grins and was greeted by a hail of quills. Bossk fell down to the water's edge and watched as the cyborg didn't even react to the quills.

The spiny predators slowly retreated into the trees as the cyborg approached. Once the Terminator unit was among the trees a shower of the Crites rained down on it, biting all the while. They bit into the flesh and were surprised at the resistance under the meaty exterior but continued right on eating.

The Terminator reacted to the threat and killed the carnivorous aliens with his bare hands. Some he popped like balloons, others he stomped flat. When there were no more within reach he pulled out the blaster rifle and began shooting every Crite he saw.

When Bossk saw the T-800 cyborg unit returning it resembled more the droids to which he was more familiar with, he also knew that it was a killing machine. It no longer resembled a man except in form. Except that it was covered in blood. Both it's own as well as that of the Crites he had just killed.

The cyborg reached down and pulled Bossk to his feet again.

"You will take me to the three females," said the Terminator. "When we find them I will determination if one of them is Sarah Connor."

Bossk nodded and then slowly lead the way through the woods

**AUTHOR's NOTES**

_Well, we've had our baby girl. Born on the 18__th__. We are calling her Elly. It's been a long hard pregnancy and now we can recover. I hope._

_Okay, people are going to ask, 'why the Ringworld connection?', and I'm going to point out right now that Larry Niven – the writer of the Ringworld series – wrote some of the LAND OF THE LOST episodes and I believe he was even consulted by the maker(s) of LAND OF THE LOST for ideas when they were coming up with the concept. I believe he must have either created the concept of the Pakuni from his many Pak species on the Ringworld or the people who made the show must have the loved the idea of the Pak species that they included one of their own._

_This segment is mostly to explain the history of the Pakuni and give an explanation for the Altrusians de-volving to primitive Sleestaks. There will be more on that situation explained in a later story update. In addition, This also gives an explanation to how the Borg happened to dig up a buried submarine. It is the pirate sub by the way._

_By the way, the goal-post head reference to Rimmer refers to the large capital H on his forehead, which marks him as a hologram._

_I brought back Bossk. Hope people are okay with it. I also decided to give the Terminator cyborg a bigger role. Besides somebody had to wipe out the Crite population or they'd kill everything that was made of meat._

**ARK II (1976 – 1979)**

Jonah – (Terry Lester)

Ruth – (Jean Marie Hon)

Samuel – (Jose Flores)

Adam - himself

**THUNDER IN PARADISE (1994)**

Randolph J. 'Hurricane' Spencer – (Hulk Hogan)

Jessica Whitaker Spencer – (Ashley Gorrell)

**DRAGONLANCE series**

Kaz the Minotaur

**RINGWORLD (1970)**

By Larry Niven

**VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA (1964 – 1968)**

Adm. Harriman Nelson – (Richard Basehart)

Lt. Comdr. Chip Morton – (Robert Dowdell)


	13. Chapter 13

**A Tangle Web 8: Part 13**

**ACT 1 – LET'S GET TOGETHER, YEAH YEAH YEAH**

They entered the large cavern side by side with Hank the Ranger and Enik the Altrusian in the lead. Hank had his bow drawn and ready to fire at a moments notice. The other individuals gapped at the sight of the rock formations, some containing glowing crystals along stretches of the ceiling that more or less resembled a starry night. Five Sleestak fighters with crossbows followed in their wake to keep to themselves. In the middle of the space a large body of water reflected some of those lights as if it were a dark mirror.

"Cool!" Bobby said.

"Mewl!" mimicked Uni.

They stopped as a group and stared. While there were some areas of weak light, most of the cavern was covered in daunting darkness.

"This takes my breath away," Sheila said as her hand slid into Hank's.

"Yeah," he answered, looking at her.

"I've seen better," Rygel commented, staring at the ceiling with his hands on his hips. Noticing their glares he decided to go over to where Enik was showing Presto a cluster of glowing multi-color crystals embedded in the wall.

Eric took the opportunity to try chatting with Chiana again while Diana hung about just close enough to hear and chuckle to herself. Nearby, Uly and True stuck close to Bobby.

"DON'T MOVE!" thundered a voice that echoed throughout the massive underground space.

Eric automatically brought up his shield, but waited for the word from Hank before doing anything. Shapes moved in the semi-darkness and appeared to have weapons trained on them. Hank was about to whisper something to Eric where there was another shout.

"Wait! We know one of them!"

"Must be friends of yours," Eric muttered to Enik.

"We are acquainted," admitted Enik. "They have even called me friend on occasion."

Diana raised an eyebrow to Enik. "You like being enigmatic, don't you?" she accused.

Two figures hurried toward them in the gloom climbing down from a trail along the side of the cavern wall.

"Enik!" cried out Jack Marshal. "What brings you down this way?"

"Hey, Enik!" Will said, a little out of breath, but smiling as he looked at the faces of the teenagers with the Altrusian. He felt a thrill at seeing people near his own age even if he was a little older than them. "Your friends must have come here by way of a costume party."

Enik grasped Jack's arm. Jack didn't flinch at the contact with the powerful clawed limb which was one of the reasons Enik trusted Jack. "Greetings, Jack Marshal. My people have been attacked and these unique people have offered there aid."

"But they are just kids!" Jack answered in surprise,

"Hey!" Eric started to storm forward, but Diana grabbed him by the ear and pulled him back.

Enik shook his head. "These children have abilities beyond your understanding."

Jack frowned. "I don't like this, Enik. What is going on?"

"Invaders have come and are attacking my people. These young ones volunteered to fight off the intruders. If you had seen them do what I have seen you would not doubt their fighting abilities. They truly are my people's best hope."

Enik turned as a tall, white haired figure walked out of the darkness. "Greetings," said the man. "I am Khan Noonien Singh." He took Enik's arm the way he had seen Jack do. Though most of others in his party disagreed with him, he knew that there could be valuable information gained here if these newcomers trusted him. Some looked like they could fight, as well. Himself and his colleagues numbered seven, including the Marshals and the seaweed creature they came to eleven, the Professor and female companion brought them up to thirteen. And if he gained Enik and his five bowmen it would bring them up to eighteen. The monochrome alien female looked like a fighter to Khan and maybe five of the older kids could join in fighting the Borg bringing their fighting force up to twenty-four. Which may mean nothing since they were going against the Borg. But beggers couldn't be choosers, Khan reminded himself.

"I am Enik."

"If your enemy is the Borg, than we have a common enemy," said Khan, suspecting that that was exactly what Enik wanted to hear.

Enik regarded the Human. "I do not know what they call themselves. All I know is that they attack my people and we are defenseless against them."

"Your enemy is the Borg," said Jack. "I've seen them. And what they have done to those they have captured." He began to explain his experiences while more of Khan's party came down out of the darkness.

To Bobby and Holly's amusement, Uni kept sniffing Sigmund and every time the seaweed creature moved, Uni would jump back startled. Uly held out his hand to Sigmund who extended a tendril to shake with while True looked on, unsure of what to do or believe at this point.

Dukat started up a conversation with Rygel, each trying to learn things from the other without giving anything that they knew. The Professor and Ace started talking to Presto who was more than happy to meet them. Chiana was not as fortunate as she was cornered by the leering Captain Kirk from the Mirror Universe. Sela and Diana eyed each other as they sized each other but said nothing.

The Alpha Hirogen, who had been hanging back from interacting in order to watch the darkness, suddenly leapt aside as something black, spikes and lots of teeth jumped at him. He managed to fire at it but it disappeared into the darkness. One of the Sleestak bowmen was grabbed from behind and dragged into the darkness before anyone could do anything.

"There's more all around us!" shouted Lore, who fired his phaser into the darkness, hitting something that seemed to explode. Hissing and bubbling sound came from the area that the xemomorph died.

"How many?" shouted Dukat, who had found himself a position near a large stalagmite.

"I count ten," said Enik, whose race saw better in the dark than the light.

"Eleven," said the female Changeling. "There is one approaching under the water."

Holly heard this and shouted to Sigmund, who had been automatically retreating to the large pond in the cavern.

The young seaweed creature had half immersed himself in the cold waters when the water in front of him exploded and a tall, slightly humanoid creature with a dark green exoskeleton stood there. Water dripped off the smooth carapace that surrounded it's elongated forehead. It's mouth opened to reveal sharp silvery teeth and it hissed menacingly.

Sigmund froze in fear.

"Sigmund!" called Holly. Her uncle pulled her back as they began to form a protective circle with the weaker members toward the center.

After sniffing the air, the xemomorph raised one of it's hands revealing six webbed digits, two of which were thumbs. With a screech of annoyance it batted Sigmund away as if the seaweed creature were a beach ball.

Dukat fired at the aquatic xemomorph, but it dove beneath the dark water and was gone. "These are not the same creatures that attacked us before!" he shouted to his teammates.

"No," answered Kirk, as he tried getting a bead with his phaser on one of the moving shadow. "These…are more…alien."

One of the creatures launched itself at the group and Eric barely got his magic shield up in time. "AHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHH! IT'S GOT TWO HEADS! AHHHHHHH!"

The xemomorph flailed against his mystic barrier with a savage fury. In appearance it was very similar to it's aquatic brethren, except that it had a larger torso in order to carry it's two heads, the left one being dark purple and the right head a dark blue. It also had a long, spiny whip-like tail that stabbed repeatedly toward Eric's face.

"What are they?" cried Will Marshal

"Something new," said Enik. The Altrusian reached a clawed hand into one of his pouches and examined the glowing crystals that he withdrew. A red and a yellow crystal were held close together by a small sticky substance. With his clawed limb, Enik forced the two crystals together so that they made contact and then tossed up over Eric's shield were it landed at the feet of the two headed monstrosity.

The explosion knocked everyone back, but the two headed creature was more than split just in half.

"Give some warning next time!" shouted Eric who was more than frazzled.

The female Changeling seemed to melt as she cried out in pain, fleeing into the shadows. A small part of her form separated and stayed wiggling frantically as it foamed into the floor.

"Arrgh!" The Alpha Hirogen pulled off his chest armor which had a few smoldering spots on it. Those nearby watched as the holes ate through the metal armor.

Ace also screamed as she jumped up hopping and pulled off her shoe. There was a small smoldering hole eating through the rock where she had been standing. The Professor grabbed her foot and examined it briefly before pulling out a salve from one of his pockets and applied some of it to her foot where it had a soothing, neutralizing effect.

"Look!" exclaimed True, pointing to where the xenomorph had exploded. The area was steaming from the acidic effects of the xenomorph's blood on the cavern floor.

"It's like a Horta's blood," said Sela. "It's eating right through rock. A few of the drops of blood must have come over the shield."

Lore looked up from his tricorder. "It's a molecular acid." He looked up at Eric. "Whatever that shield is it kept us from being covered in this stuff."

Eric gulped. "Okaaay. No more blowing those things up without everyone being ready."

"Let's have a look around," said Hank. He fired a flare arrow in the air illuminating the cavern.

Lore fired as the spiky xenomorph lunged forward. The spiky monster stumbled back and disappeared. "That one has a tougher shell. Increase yo-"

One of the creatures leapt toward their group from one of the large stalagmites. Diana gripped her magic staff and willed it to grow as she swung it at the macabre-looking beast. Contact with the magic staff knocked the xenomorph back far enough that the Alpha Hirogen was able to safely shoot it.

The aquatic one could be seen diving amongst the stalagmites and rocks leaving a trail of water behind it as it came closer to them. Suddenly something surrounded it in two inch wide bands of a pliable material. Dukat was the first to realize that it was their shape shifter colleague. "Don't shoot! It's the Changeling!"

No one really had an opportunity to act, as an incredibly long spiny tail swung below their guard knocking them all collectively off their feet. And then the aliens pounced. And it was over.

Moments later people could be heard scrambling in the dark. Sela lit a flare and propped it on a stone before lighting another one. The Alpha Hirogen stood with his back to hers, a sentinel against the darkness. Eric stood at their side with his shield at full force and ready to deflect Armageddon itself. "Man, now that was something," said the teenage boy.

"What did they want?" came Sela's angry tone. She pulled out a tricorder, but detected nothing. Nearby, one of the Sleestak honor guards was helping Enik to his feet.

"What they wanted, they took," answered the Alpha Hirogen.

Sigmund, his face pushed in and torn, was wobbling over from the pond, avoiding the acid scorched sections of rock. "They are gone." Uly reached up to touch the sappy stumps of some of the missing tendrils near Sigmund's head. The seaweed creature pulled back. "Please. Don't touch. They will grow back in a few weeks if they are left alone."

Eric glanced over in confusion to the Alpha Hirogen. "What did they take?" He glanced around. "Hey! Where's Presto?"

Bobby jumped to his feet, prepared to swing his club. A small trickle of blood flowed down over one of his ears. "Where are they? I'll smash 'em! I'll…Where's Sheila? And Uni?"

As others gained their feet they quickly determined that along with the first Sleestak, six of their comrades were missing, which was Sheila, Presto, Uni, Khan, Holly and Chiana.

"We have to go after them," insisted Hank.

"No." Dukat stepped forward. "Our mission to stop the Borg takes priority."

"Hey," Diana said. "I don't know if you noticed but one of your guys is missing, too!"

"A hunter, as well as a fighter, understands the risks," said the Alpha Hirogen. "I am sorry for your loss. But we must return before they return."

Bobby swung his club in the air. "Yeah? Well let them return! We're ready for them now!"

"This is their terrain," said Lore. "The fight would end the same, and more of us will be taken."

Jack stood up. "We have to do something. We have to try get them back. Soon, before anything bad happens to them."

"Very well," Sela stepped up. Dukat almost told her to sit back down but realized here, just now, he didn't have the authority. She looked at them all. "We'll compromise."

"We'll what?" choked Dukat.

The Romulan glared him down. Cardassians were never good negotiators. "I'm suggesting that one of my team goes with you on a rescue mission while one of your team goes with ours to fight the Borg."

Diana cocked her head to the side. "Why that way?"

"Because you need more long range weapons like ours and we could use an impenetrable shield against the Borg."

"What? Me? Go with them?" Eric's surprise at the idea outweighed any other feelings he might have on the matter.

"I offer my services as well," said Rygel, eager to put distance between himself and the horrible creatures of the darkness.

"And I volunteer to go with the rescue team," said Sela. Her teammates looked at her, trying to figure out her angle in this, but said nothing.

The female Changeling, looking tired and weak, nodded. "It makes sense. An impenetrable shield would be little to protect against a pack of those creatures coming from every side, while the Borg usually all come from the same side."

"And we could really use another long range weapon against those things," admitted Hank, much to Eric's disbelief.

The Professor nodded. "Then it is agreed. And Ace will go on the rescue."

Ace looked at him in disbelief. "I will?"

"Oh, yes. And you can use one of the extra phaser weapons to fight with."

Sela tossed her an extra phaser. "I'll show you how to use it on the way."

They discussed a few other details but quickly moved off on their different quests.

**ACT 2 – HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE MEGATRON**

McGinnis, having scanned the area, lifted the comm. link to his mouth. "This is Bat-1 to Vulcan-1. No sign of hostiles or anyone else for that matter. But there has been a lot of activity down there recently. I'm guessing a couple dozen people to a hundred or more."

"Very well," came the dry and slightly annoyed voice. "We are coming. Stay on guard."

Terry chuckled to himself. Spock could give Bruce stoic lessons. He climbed up higher on the redwood tree and scanned the area using various visual frequencies before he was satisfied that no one was out there.

After a few moments he saw the others walk into the clearing. Glancing around a second time, he leapt down over sixty feet to join the others.

He startled everyone. Martok was especially angry. "Give warning before arriving like that! I almost shot your fool head off!"

"So you did miss me!"

Martok growled and stomped past Batman. Ro chuckled and followed after the Klingon to secure a perimeter on the far side of the clearing.

Behind them a young blonde woman stumbled, and McGinnis stepped over to help her to her feet. Kes was awake from her coma but very weak. Janeway had been helping her along the path but wasn't doing much better herself and had sat wearily down as soon as they had reached the clearing edge.

Terry –the Batman– reached Kes to steady her, and then for good measure helped Captain Janeway who was stumbling forward to help.

Spock, followed by Adm. McCoy, walked past them with his eyes mainly on his tricorder. They walked to near the middle of the clearing where there was an eight foot tall crumpled heap of white painted metal.

"I remember seeing something like this where we were back in the twentieth century." Bones rubbed his chin. "I think it was the time we went back for the whales. Anyway, they called it 'Modern Art' or something like that."

Spock ignored the reference and focused on the matter at hand. "This is definitely the location of where the time-lord known as the Master arrived in this land. It matches the data that we accumulated from 4-LOM."

Bones glanced around. "So where is he now?"

Spock raised an eyebrow. "Logic would indicate that he has gone to engage the Borg."

"Then what are we doing here?" he said, his tone indicating that he was losing his patience.

Spock continued. "We are here to gain useful information such as what direction he went off in as well as what type of forces he has recruited."

"But he has a head start!"

"Interesting."

"Interesting that he has a head start? Are you daft, man?" demanded McCoy.

Spock regarded his long-time friend for a moment. "My tricorder has detected a complex algorithm coming from this twisted mass of metal."

Biting his tongue, McCoy turned away. He was surprised to see Captain Picard intently using a tricorder on a large rectangular box. Captain Janeway was propped up under a tree using her tricorder to scan a nearby pylon. "My God! Spock, you've started a trend!"

The Vulcan ignored his friend's sarcasm. "This is unusual."

"What? Their behavior? Or have you found something?"

"I think something has found us." Spock typed a few things into his tricorder. "The algorithm is downloading itself into by tricorder."

"Can you stop it?"

"Yes, but should I?"

"Well, what will happen to your tricorder? Is it trying to steal data? It could be part of a trap set up buy the Master!"

"It's not trying to steal data," he said as he scanned through various files. "Although it is deleting various things to make space for itself."

"Can't you stop it? All that information from that killer android we captured will be lost."

"I could stop it. But the data you are referring to is also on Picard's tricorder."

McCoy sighed. "Do we really have time to deal with an unknown cybernetic entity at this time?"

Spock didn't answer. "It is complete." He addressed the tricorder. "Greetings. I am Ambassador Spock."

Nothing was said for almost a minute. "I – Am – Megatron. Leader – Of – The – Decepticons."

Spock and McCoy glanced at each other. "Can you tell us what has happened here?"

"I – Can – Tell – You – Everything," said the metallic voice.

As they began to converse, shooting began back the way they had come.

Batman, followed by Picard, hurried over to where Captain Sisko was scanning the trees.

"What was it?" asked Batman.

Keeping his eyes on the trees, Sisko answered. "That armored killer you were wrestling with before. He followed us. Almost got him, but he was too quick."

Out in the trees, Boba Fett ducked behind a large rotting stump. These people were proving to be a real challenge for him. Behind his mask he smiled to himself. It had been quite a while since he had had a real challenge.

**Author's Notes:**

_As you can see I did not forget about the little xemomorph outbreak. You may have noticed that some of the xemomorphs (or aliens) have a little different appearance than those in the movies. That is because I'm saying that the xemomorphs were able to take a few of the attributes of the creatures that hosted them, which was a few of Skeletor's henchmen: Mer-Man, Two-Bad, Whiplash & Spikor. Examples of this can be seen in the ALIENS VS. PREDATOR movie at the very end when the baby xemomorph burst forth from one of the Predator hunters. It obviously had a few obvious characteristics of the Predator species. Plus, in a DC Comics crossover from a few years back, a military experiment was performed using xemomorph embryos and some of the more dangerous Arkham Asylum inmates, including Joker, Two-Face, and Croc and someone else that I can't remember. Each resulting xemomorph resembled a villain in some way._

_Now you are probably asking why did I break up the groups like that. Because I have a plan and I'm not telling you. I like to mess with the reader's heads. Especially, those that don't send me reviews. Those that do send me reviews (along with a e-mail address) I can ask question about plot ideas and sometimes let them read a little of what is coming before I post._

_I brought back Megatron. I debated about doing that for a while. I even asked a few people about it. I figured he could possible survive being crushed but there would be no way his body could be used again. So I downloaded him into a tricorder and sent him off with the Starfleet team. I think he's going to want revenge against the Master. What do you think?_

_I was going to write another small segment but my wife wants me to go watch season 3 of Lost on DVD. Hope to hear from everybody._


	14. Chapter 14

**A TANGLED WEB Part 8:14 **

**ACT 1 – **

The Master examined his conscripted troops with a critical eye. There were just over a hundred of them now and he was going to need them all. He could see the fear and resentment in their faces, but he would use that. He had lost seven of his Decepticons to the Borg – Laserbeak, Buzzsaw, Frenzy, Thundercracker, SpyGlass, Spectro and ViewFinder. Soundwave and Ravage were being repaired. Other than that only one of his Human fighters was injured – The Toyman, who guaranteed that he could still use his remote control defenses against the Borg.

"Mistakes were made and those careless fools have cost us," he said to those listening. "We were able to gain the upper hand though and hold back the Borg. Now we must finish them."

He motioned to the two towers that they had built. A third was under construction in the edge of the range of the other antenna towers, but it had to be discontinued due to long range attacks by the Borg. "These radio towers effectively block the Borg Collective from controlling their drones within eight hundred yards of them. Therefore, we have a base from which to work. More of these devices are being built. The plan is simple. The Constructicons will come together to take on their Devastator form and will carry one of the signal blockers to the Borg nest while the rest of us wipe out the guideless drones. Giganta will carry another signal blocker and approach from the rear, thus cutting off their escape."

"What about the tunnels?" pointed out Cobra Commander. "They could get out that way."

"That's why you will have to quick. Otherwise you'll have to go down after them."

Nobody liked hearing that. Luthor and Skeletor glanced at each other and then Luthor nodded to Brainiac who was monitoring on of the control panels for the antennas.

A large circle of purple-ish blue lights swirling together began to form at the base of both towers.

"What is this?" demanded the Master.

"Reinforcements," said Luthor. They watched as people of various sizes and shapes, not to mention outlandishly dressed, began leaping through the small wormholes and onto the grass.

"I didn't authorize this!"

Luthor eyed him coldly. "Your days of authorizing things around here are at an end, _Master_."

"We'll see about that," fumed the time lord, as he followed after Luthor, who had gone to greet the newcomers.

They were not an organized lot as they spread out to see the new locale. "These are some of the most dangerous villains you will ever meet," said Luthor. Captain Cold came over to join them. "We used the antenna to send a secondary signal to contact some of our contacts and asked them to join us here. Captain Cold told us how to contact some of his occasional partner's in crime, such as his sister - the Golden Glider, and the Mirror Master. They organized everyone else to come."

A woman in a gold outfit skating on thin air skated down to them and gave Captain Cold a big hug. "I'll say we did! We caused a huge breakout at Arkham Asylum, too!"

Luthor stiffened. "You didn't bring that insufferable clown, did you?"

For his answer a white faced man with grin hair, a large grin loudly discussing the most lethal ways to use a rubber chicken to the Trickster and anyone else that would listen. Luthor groaned. "Well, except for him you seem to have a strong team."

"There's forty of us," said the Mirror Master, who handed over a list of everyone there. "Managed to get most of us that go against the Flash and them everyone else that we could get a hold of."

Luthor looked up as else someone approached. "Ah, my counterpart from Earth-2. Alexei Luthor."

The other man, a redhead, scowled. "Any Earth I am on is Earth-1!" he challenged.

"I didn't name them. I think the designations were determined by the two Flashes from our worlds during a coin toss."

The redheaded man ignored the explanation. "This venture had better pan out. The twenty-four people I brought with me are expecting results." He handed him a folder containing the relevant info on those that had accompanied him.

"My people want results, too!" exclaimed a short bald man with thick glasses walking up to them.

"Ah, Dr. Sivana." Luthor smiled. He, Alexei and Sivana had been communicating for just a few years now, pen pals from different parallel universes. While they would not share their secrets with each other, they found it refreshing to have someone to rant to who understood the difficulties that they tried to overcome. "I'm so glad that you could join us. I see you brought two of your children."

Sivana glanced back at Sivana, Jr and Georgia. "I figured it would do them some good to get out of the lab and see where all the dangerous stuff happened."

Luthor glanced at those Sivana had brought with him. "I was hoping you'd be able to bring more with you. Are there only ten of you?"

Sivana shook his head. "It's not the numbers that count, but the intellect, skill and power of the individuals. And that we have."

Lex ran a calculating eye over those he knew and was pleased that this part had at least turned out right. "I'm glad to see that everyone is getting alone." As he watched Vandal Savage was talking with King Kull. Captain Nazi, Dr. Psycho and Baron Blitzkrieg were chatting as well. The Ultra-Humanite, Mr. Mind and T.O. Morrow had also formed another small circle. "Looks like everyone is pairing off by finding common interests."

Captain Cold nodded. "I see a few I would like to take to as well. Find out what kind of techniques they use," he said, with a nod indicating he meant Minister Blizzard, Mr. Freeze and the Icicle.

"Who's that over there?" asked Alexei.

"That is Skeletor. He's greeting Hordak and his Evil Horde who arrived at the same time you did."

"Hordak sure brought a lot of robots with him," pointed out Sivana.

Lex nodded. "Those would be his Horde Troopers. They use a type of laser gun to fight with."

"They are cannon fodder!" snapped the Master. "Otherwise I would have gathered them at the same time I picked up Skeletor."

"Who's Mr. Cheerful?" asked the Golden Glider.

"He's the one I told you about. Likes to call himself the Master."

"The one that you can't lift a finger against?" said Alexei.

Lex scowled. "Yes, he had us placed under a geis of sorts so that we can't hurt him." He glanced at Alexei. "But that shouldn't stop you."

The Master raised his chin and looked down his nose at them. "So, this is why you sought more numbers. We wanted to bring someone in who could kill me!"

"Like you left us any other option," Lex replied snidely.

The Master nodded. "Very well. Let them try." He began to laugh.

Annoyed, Alexei Luthor pulled out a disintegrator gun and aimed it at him. He tried to pull the trigger but was surprised to find that he couldn't. "Something's wrong here."

"What? But they didn't come here with you! They should be able to kill you!"

The Master nodded. "But you invited them here. Thus they are connected to me once they joined forces with you. The geis applies to them as well."

Sivana scowled at Lex. "You've underestimated everything! What have you gotten us involved in?"

The Master gave Lex a sinister smile. "Yes, Lex. Why don't you explain that to all your friends. I'm sure they would love to hear you explain how you got them here to serve me. And that will be just the beginning of the punishment I have for you."

An explosion occurred underground, causing everyone to lose their footing. One of the antenna towers began to sink into the ground causing Hordak and his warriors to scramble out of the way.

"We're under attack!" shouted General Traag. He began giving orders to those closest to him.

"Prepare yourselves!" shouted the Master. Reaching into his inner coat pocket, he extracted his Tissue Compression Eliminator.

Another explosion nodded most of them over. As the Master looked up he could see the second tower start to fall. "Save it!" he bellowed. "It is the only thing holding back the Borg!"

Mr. Atom, the tall robot brought along by Dr. Sivana, grabbed the tower and began pulling it back up out of the ground. Star Sapphire flew toward the tower as she focused her thoughts through the jewel on her tiara. Just as she was about to help the large robot lift up the tower, stun beams from the forming chasm struck her and she fell to the ground. Mr. Atom was struck as well and fell into the chasm. He did not return.

Black Adam and Bizarro pulled up the tower and placed it nearby, forcing the ends of the base into the ground so that it would stand on it's own. Brainiac, Lex Luthor and Krang ran over to it knowing that they needed to get it operational again or they were doomed.

From a clearing over eight hundred yards away, Borg drones began marching toward them, shooting at the various villains.

The Decepticons delivered a barrage of shots at the approaching drones, many of which proved ineffective since the Borg had already adjusted to those energy frequencies.

"What did I tell you about changing the frequencies of your weapons!" shouted the Master. He ducked down behind Clayface, who, after being stunned, seemed to melt in every direction. "We need cover!" shouted the time-lord from where he laid prone on the ground next to the Penguin and the Mad Hatter.

"Gotcha covered, boss." Captain Cold used his cold gun to form a long barricade in front of the oncoming drones. "That won't stop them long, but it might-" All along the barricade the ice wall was being blasted apart, showering the villains with chunks of slush. Leonard Snart a.k.a. Captain Cold shook the cold wet slush from his hood. "They just had to go and make it personal, didn't they."

He motioned over Mr. Freeze, Minister Blizzard and the Icicle. "Boys, it's time to show them the real definition of the word freeze." The Icicle chuckled but Mr. Freeze and Minister Blizzard nodded solemnly.

The frosty quartet took aim and fired their various cold based weapons at the same time. The closest drones were frozen solid though there was one drone, a transformed Breen warrior, continued on. It aimed and fired hitting the Icicle who fell over.

"Got him!" came a feminine yell. Captain Cold looked up to see his sister, the Golden Glider, skating across the sky and getting ready to throw her modified expandable necklace at the drone.

"Lisa! No!" But it was too late and she was stunned. Cold watched as his sister fell out of the sky like a stone.

A green blur and she was caught by Captain Nazi, and as he flew her to safety while Wotan used his magic to burn the drone to ashes.

Captain Nazi, a tall blue-eyed blond, landed near Captain Cold with the Golden Glider in his arms. "I just had to save an Aryan beauty such as this." The lustful look in his eye told volumes.

Captain Cold took his sister from the Nazi villain. "Thanks, but we're Jewish," lied Snart. Cold had standards after all, and he needed to protect his sister.

The others had not been idle during this encounter. Weather Wizard had formed a tornado that was reeking havoc along the far side of the approaching Borg. Black Adam had been plowing through the drones but had been caught in a stasis beam and could not move. Terra-Man flew high in the air on his winged horse and took pot-shots down at the Borg. Dr. Alchemy used his philosopher's stone to make a trench so that they could have some cover. The Key, Monocle, Deadshot and Dr. Light formed a line of cover fire so that others could get to safety. On the far side, Yellow Wasp, Captain Boomerang, Queen Bee and the Tattooed Man were setting up a line of defense, as well. They figured out really quick that every man for himself wasn't going to work here.

The Psycho-Pirate, realizing he had waited too long and wouldn't make it to safety, turned and made a terrified face at an approaching Borg. The drone was struck by the fear powers of the Psycho-Pirate and for a few moments every drone froze and had a terrified expression on their faces. Then their faces became somber again and the drone vaporized the Psycho-Pirate out of existence.

At the other tower, Skeletor and Hordak were having similar difficulties. They both fired their weapons at Borg. Hordak had been struck a glancing blow but had not gone down; shaking off the effects he became more determined not to lose. Imp, a small devil-like cherub, flew around in a frenzy, unsure of what to do or where to go.

The four-legged Mantenna stood by Hordak and fired eye-beams at the oncoming drones. He lowered his head and rubbed at his eyes.

"Fire, you fool!" shouted Hordak.

"I-I-I'm running out of power," admitted Mantenna.

"Then pick up one of the laser blasters of one of the fallen Horde Troopers, and shoot with that until your powers recharge!"

Nearby, Scorpia leapt out at two drones, pinning one in her large pinchers while stabbing the other drone repeatedly with her scorpion-like tail. As another drone turned to shoot her, Catra, another of Hordak's minions, bound out of a nearby tree and pounded her prey into the dirt. A stun beam from another struck her and she fell on top of the stunned drone. The grotesque amphibian-like Leech grabbed the shooting drone from behind with the suction pads on his hands. As he began to drain the life-force from his opponent, he felt something different and pulled away from his unconscious opponent. But it was too late as grayish veins began to course up his arms.

Octavia, a green humanoid woman with two sets of tentacles coming out of her back, had two drones wrapped up in her grasp and had been about to do a similar life-force siphoning when she noticed what had happened to Leech. Instead, she battered the two drones heads together repeatedly until they fell down dead. Then she picked up Catra and carried her back to Hordak. "These things are too much for us! We need help!"

"It's here!" Skeletor said, as a number of his minions hurried forward.

Trap-Jaw fired repeatedly with his prosthetic arm. Beast Man and Jitsu moved in close to the drones and fought hand and claw against the cyborg threat. Tung Lashor, a shorter red scaled lizard man, was encouraged by the arrival of help and lashed out with his extendible tongue, tripping some of the drones with it. Modulok, a red-skinned three-legged anomaly that had been a scientist who had mutated himself, leapt on the fallen drones with razor claws. One of the drones got past his guard, however and struck him with it's tubules in Modulok's forearm.

"Arrgh! It stabbed me!"

Tung Lashor gawked at the grey veins spreading in Modulok's arm. "I think you'd better have it looked at. It's infected."

Growling in anger, Modulok detached his arm and set it on the ground where they watched the grey nano-probes spread through the limb. "Now I'll have to grow another arm," he said in frustration.

Those that had originally brought here by the Master were not standing on the sidelines as Borg drones were approaching from the other direction as well.

Destro and Major Bludd led their troops to the small shelter that they had built for the studies and experiments being conducted on the previously captured drones.

"We'll use the lab for shielding while we fire on them!" shouted Destro.

Just before they got there, Dr. Mindbender stumbled out of the doorway, ashen faced. The Borg prisoners followed out behind him.

"Get down!" yelled Bludd, as the drones began shooting at them. They were pinned down and could only wait as the drones approached.

Bebop and Rocksteady charged forward behind the bulky form of Moltar, the lava man, who was pouring out lava ahead of him.. Both mutate men carried explosive devices that they lobbed like footballs at the nearing drones. It was not the smartest tactic but it proved to be an effective one.

Evil-Lyn grasped hands with the red cloaked Shadow Weaver. They pulled their mystic powers together in one great spell. Once completed, all of the drones on their side were suddenly forced back bodily a thousand yards away.

Zorak pounced on two drones and decapitated them both in the blink of an eye. The Cheetah brought a third drone down that had been about to stun Zorak. Brak and Sisto crouched behind a group of boulders firing at the closest drones with two of the laser guns Brainiac had mass produced.

Blitzwing flew down and fired blasts that either hit the drones or that tore up the ground. Then on swinging back, as he neared the ground he transformed into his tank form and landed hard, firing.

The fighting skilled out all over. Many were stunned. Some were inoculated with nano-probes and lead away by the Borg. But finally, Brainiac, Lex Luthor, Alexei Luthor, Dr. Sivana, and Krang got the antenna tower working again. All drones within eight hundred yards ceased attacking.

The Master nodded. The newcomers were under his control and they were blooded in battle now, too. Yes, things were coming together for him. Now he just had to beat the Doctor to the prize before that interfering do-gooder realized what he was really after.

Then he noticed that the drones inside the Collective blocking field were mostly turning back and returning for where they had come while a few continued on in a suicide attack on the antenna. It would keep the defenders busy while the majority escaped. Other drones outside the area being blocked where providing cover fire for the drones that were in retreat so most of them would make it, too. He knew that those within the blocking field were not receiving orders through the Collective so they had to be acting on instruction of what to do if they were temporarily disconnected from the Collective. Smart, he'd give them that. But it would not save them from him.

**ACT 2**

Max Guevera had been licking her fingers that had gotten sticky from one of the large three-pound strawberry she had been eating.

"That was good," said the man known only as Number Six. "And I can honestly say that I can not remember ever having anything like that before in my life."

Max laughed. "Amnesia would do that for you." She turned to the prisoner that they were watching while the others worked on studying the wreckage of the ARK II. "Are you sure that you don't want one of these berries? They're good."

"Bah!" The Spider-Woman, bound in vines, turned her head away in disgust.

They decided to ignore her. "I know that I'm British," said Number Six. "I believe I've lived in or near London at some point in my life."

"Sounds good," said Max. "Keep going with those thoughts. Maybe something else will come to you."

"Well, I must have traveled extensively. I remember various locations like Russia, Canada, Germany, Australia, Italy, Morocco, Iceland, the United States, South Africa, Egypt and Israel. And I think I did some type of dangerous job."

Max got to her feet and looked out at the tree line.

"I may have been a government employee. Yes, I worked for the government. And then I quit and I was… abducted? Yes, I was abducted to the Village. I don't know where that is though. And my name…Let's see, it's on the tip of my tongue! Why can't I remember it?"

Max didn't turn to him. "Sorry, Six, but it looks like we got company."

Walking toward them from the tree line was the glowing red figure of a man. The others from around the ARK II had also noticed the red figure and had come over slowly, making sure this wasn't another fight.

"I'm Max," she said. "I hope you come in peace."

The red figure stopped. Then it tilted it's head to the side as it regarded her. "Max Guevera, this is not your time."

Max jumped. Not because the red figure knew her full name, but because it had spoken to her telepathically.

The red figure turned to Number Six. "John Drake, this is not your time."

"Hey! That's my name! I remember now! I remember everything!"

The red figure did not seem to care about Drake's excitement as it turned to the Spider-Woman. "You are an intruder, Spider-Woman. You have invaded this place."

The pale, old woman looked at him scornfully, but before she could rebuff what he had said, the red figure raised a hand toward her. A red beam shot out and engulfed her, leaving her in a red aura that covered her features.

Max took a step back and prepared to fight or run if she had to. "Who are you? For that matter, what are you?"

"Cha-Ka know him! Cha-Ka know him!" The young Paku bounded up to the red figure. "He is Builder!"

"Greetings, Cha-Ka," said the Builder. The red form of the Builder seemed to shrink down to Cha-Ka's size and then the red field dissipated revealing a yellow-suited human boy.

"It's a kid?" Lister said in disbelief. "How can it be a kid?"

The robot came to a stop behind him. "I find that children are often underestimated."

"Shorter people are underestimated, too," added Alf. He turned to the child. "Hey, kid, you seem to know us, but who are you?"

The young lad regarded the Melmacian, and for a moment Alf thought that there just might be a new statue of a red glowing Melmacian, soon. "Gordon Shumway, you could not pronounce my true name. But if you do not like the title of the Builder, then my classmates call me the Other."

Will Robinson stepped forward. He asked the question that he thought he already knew the answer to. "I'm Will Robinson. Are you trapped here, too?"

The Other tilted his head. "Trapped? I am the Builder. I have created this land. I am not trapped here."

Max's jaw dropped. "But, you are just a kid! How could you make this place? For that matter, why would you make this place?"

"It was part of a project. Each of us had to create a tesseract to form a small microverse outside of regular time with it's own gravity base and artificial solar and lunar sources," he said. "Each of us were allowed to select temporal samples from one world as well as it's dimensional counterparts. My selection was Earth."

"What?" Dr. Smith had been hanging behind the others, mostly so he could escape in case this was a trick to bring them all close together. "I don't believe my ears! Are you saying that this entire place is you school science project?"

The boy regarded him. "It's more of a study of sociology, anthropology, zoology and chronology, but basically that is correct, Dr. Zachary Smith."

Kryten raised a hand. "But, sir, this place is tens of thousands of years old. How is it possible for you to have made all this?"

The Other nodded toward the service android. "My people are the Gallifreyans. Sometimes we have been called time-lords. We are masters of time and space. And my project does not require me to monitor every moment, but only those of critical importance."

"But why go to such lengths?" asked Rimmer.

"The answer, hologram of Arnold J. Rimmer, is to gain insight to alien cultures, study survival instincts and observe as one culture advances above another."

"Wait!" Alf raised a finger. "I think I've found a flaw. You said you were studying Earth. But not everything here is from Earth. Take me for example."

"You landed on Earth and thus became associated with it. The Zarn, another resident here, never set foot on Earth but only traveled within it's solar orbit twelve millennia after Earth was destroyed."

"So everything here happens by chance?" asked Will.

"Usually new subjects are brought here randomly. The computers look for interesting subjects and then if the population here drops then the subjects will be introduced to the environment."

"So why did we all show up at once?" demanded the Cat.

"Cat, when the invaders forced their way into my project, the computer system automatically brought over all the subjects that it had been monitoring."

"Sounds like you should have had someone checking to make sure everything was running smoothly while you were away," commented Drake.

"I did. The Altrusians are a race that had sprung up after mankind had all but been wiped out in the far future. Seeing that they were going to be wiped out by a species known as the Morlocks, I took pity on them and brought them here. As part of my studies I taught them technologies they had never before conceived of, and all I asked of them was that they watch over my project between my millennia inspections."

"What happened to them?" asked Lister. "Oh wait. Let me guess. The Pax Protector killed them with the flooding."

"Over the generations, they had became lax. They did not believe anything could threaten them. It resulted in most of them dying. The rest became savages and I devolved them."

"Devolved them?" Dr. Smith gulped.

"Do not think of me as a villain. I sent them one to bring them back. His name is Enik."

**AUTHOR'S NOTES**

_A lot of people are probably asking themselves why did I bring in so many new characters at this point. Well, I had depleted the Master's army a lot and for the big battle coming up I need more fighters. Really. Besides, it's going to be fun._

_Okay. Now the whole Earth-1, Earth-2 and Earth-S thing (Earth-S is where the Captain Marvel villains come from). Since I am using the Legion of Doom from the CHALLENGE OF THE SUPER-FRIENDS series which started in 1978, I figured I'd have to use the parallel Earth set up that DC Comics used prior to that great crossover event CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS in 1985 where they destroyed most of the multiverse and merged five parallel universes (Earth-1, Earth-2, Earth-4, Earth-S and Earth-X) into one. I have tried gathering only the most well-known villains from this time period. Is the Anti-Monitor coming to wipe everyone out? Not in this fanfiction._

_There has been wide spread speculation that the character from THE PRISONER came from the show SECRET AGENT as the actor of the second series left it to do THE PRISONER series. They also never say the real name of the character Number Six which is why there is so much speculation._

_The Builder comes from the LAND OF THE LOST episode 'The Musician'. At the end of the episode the Builder's red form shrunk down and the red field disappeared to reveal a young boy about Cha-Ka's size. After he tells Cha-Ka 'It is your time', Cha-Ka is finally able to play notes on a bamboo recorder that he had been struggling with all episode._

**SECRET AGENT (1964 – 1966)**

**a.k.a. DANGER MAN**

John Drake – (Patrick McGoohan)

**DC COMICS**

**Earth-1**

Captain Boomerang

Catman

Catwoman

Cavalier

Circe

Clayface

Copperhead

Deadshot

Deathstroke the Terminator

Dr. Alchemy

Dr. Light

Dr. Psycho

Felix Faust

Floronic Man

Golden Glider

Hector Hammond

Joker

Kanjar Ro

Key

Killer Moth

Mad Hatter

Major Disaster

Metallo

Minister Blizzard

Mirror Master

Mr. Freeze

Ocean Master

Penguin

Pied Piper

Poison Ivy

Queen Bee

Shadow Thief

Sonar

Star Sapphire

Tattooed Man

Terra-Man

T.O. Morrow

Trickster

Two-Face

Weather Wizard

**Earth-S**

Black Adam

Captain Nazi

Dr. Sivana

Georgia

Ibac

King Kull

Mr. Atom

Mr. Mind

Sabbac

Sivana, Jr

**Earth-2**

Baron Blitzkrieg

Brainwave

Deathbolt

Dummy

Fiddler

Gambler

Gentleman Ghost

Huntress

Icicle

Luthor, Alexei

Mekanique

Mist

Monocle

Per Degaton

Pycho-Pirate

Rag Doll

Shade

Sportsmaster

Thinker

Thorn

Ultra-Humanite

Vandal Savage

Wizard

Woton

Yellow Wasp

**SHE-RA: PRINCESS OF POWER (1985 – 1987)**

Catra

Entrapta

Grizzlor

Hordak

Imp

Leech

Mantenna

Modulok

Octavia

Rattler

Scorpia

Shadow Weaver

Tung Lashor

Vultak

50 Horde Troopers

**THE TIME MACHINE (?)**

Morlocks (mentioned only)


	15. Chapter 15

**A Tangled Web Part 8: 15**

**ACT 1**

It was a glum group that moved through the dark tunnels of the Sleestak. Hank, with his energy bow drawn, led the way with Sigmund, the sea-monster. Behind him came Jack and Will Marshall followed by the two kids, True and Uly. Bobby walked behind them ready to swing his magic club at any shadow that moved. Ace followed with her croquet mallet out resting on her shoulder and the Romulan phaser in her other hand. Diana came last with the female Romulan, Sela, at her side.

Hank tried to leave those behind that didn't have any weapons to fight with, but Jack and Will insisted, while also pointing out that they knew the surprises of the Land of the Lost better than he did.

True pointed out that Uly could travel through the ground to get away, and possibly bring two or more people with him. And that it was probably just as dangerous for True to be left waiting alone in the tunnels as it was for her to come along.

As for Sigmund, the short mass of sentient sea vegetation proved to be the most valuable member of the group as he could track the xenomorphs by the acidic trail that they left that only he seemed to sense. Even Sela's tricorder couldn't do that.

"We're getting close."

Hank could tell that Sigmund was getting nervous as his tendrils were shaking more than ever. "Okay, can you detect any of those creatures around here?"

"I-I'm not sure."

"The wall's texture is changing," pointed out Jack. As they advanced they all noticed a white substance overlaying the walls and taking up more space.

"Reminds me of a hornets nest," Will commented.

"Yeah," Bobby glowered. "Well, these things ain't hornets, but if they come out I'll squash them!"

True put a hand on her shoulder. "Just remember what the splatter can do to all of us."

"Oh. Oh yeah. Acid for blood." Bobby began rethinking his attack strategies.

They came to a place were the tunnel branched off in three different directions.

"Which way?" Diana asked Sigmund.

The short sea creature trembled and almost went into a limp position. "I-I-I'm not sure. They've been all over this area. I can't tell in which direction they carried off people."

"We're not breaking up into groups, are we?" asked Ace, the hardheaded young woman suddenly looking frightened. "I mean, strength is in numbers. We should stay together."

"I have life signs." Sela slowly moved her tricorder back and forth. Something was interfering with her signal, but something was definitely alive up ahead. "Some of them are Human," she was finally able to determine.

"Lead the way," Hank said.

Sela went down the left tunnel; her tricorder in her left hand while her phaser was in her right.

The white stuff lining the walls was thicker than earlier.

"What is this stuff?" whispered True.

Sela looked annoyed, but noticed the question in the others eyes, too. "It's a type of resin used to produce hive-like homes. From scanning its molecular structure, it appears to have been made by mixing the creatures acidic saliva with other material."

"Are you saying that all this stuff was made by their spit?" exclaimed Bobby. He didn't know whether to be impressed or horrified. "This place is like the inside of a giant spitball!" Only Uly was impressed with that statement so Bobby put himself back in warrior mode.

"There's a small cavern ahead," Sela mentioned in a quiet tone.

As they stepped into the cavern, small glowing crystals lined the ceiling and shed dim light on the setting. Sounds of the resin crunching under their feet and their breathing were the only things they could hear.

Sela seemed frustrated with the results from her tricorder. "This stuff is acting like an insulator and absorbing some of my signal. But I know for sure that the Humans are up here. They're alive but their life signs are low."

"Then let's go get them!" insisted Will Marshall.

Hank stepped in front of him. "We'll go first. You don't have any weapons so you and your dad-"

"He's my uncle."

"Ok, uncle, then. Those without weapons will assist or carry whoever we find. This is a sneak in and grab arrangement. Any fighting will probably bring in the rest of these things and we don't know how many of them there are. So avoid that if possible."

"We also don't have Eric to shield us," Diana said, glaring at Sela, who had insisted that Eric go with her team while she came on this one.

"Actually, I think we have a few tricks that might help out," said Will's uncle. He held up a small bag and shook it slightly.

"Hey, yeah!" Will grinned. "The crystals!"

Hank shook his head, indicating that this was neither the time nor the place for this kind of discussion. They proceeded forward.

Ace poked at the resin on the walls with her croquet bat. "It's almost like there are faces in here." Part of the resin moved and a Sleestak head fell forward through the stringy paper-like stuff.

True almost screamed but Uly had a hand over her mouth before she could.

"It's dead," pointed out Sela.

"What-what happened to it?" asked Diana.

The Romulan studied her tricorder as well as visually assessing the corpse with her eyes. "Something strangled it, but that was not what killed it." She changed the setting on her phaser and burned away some of the resin holding the Sleestak carcass in place. The chest area of the Sleestak was cleared revealing a gapping hole there.

"What happened?" asked Uly, who had been staring at the readings on the tricorder in Sela's hands.

"Looks like something tore into him," said Bobby, who was trying not to turn green.

"More like something tore out of him," informed Sela.

They continued on into the cavern keeping their eyes peeled.

True pointed out toward the middle of the small cavern. "What are those? Some type of cave bulb for a flower?" She was pointing at the middle of the cave where there were dozens of large tulip-like bulbs a little smaller than a basketball spaced throughout the area.

"You're going to tell us those are eggs, right?" said Ace, hoping she was wrong. _I so should have gone with the Professor_, she thought.

Sela consulted her tricorder, annoyed at the undisciplined responses of all these youths. "There is something alive in them. There structure is different than those that attacked us earlier. I can't get a more conclusive reading than that."

"So let's avoid the large tulip bulb things," advised Jack Marshall.

"Look!" True said in a loud whisper. She pointed to figures buried in the alien resin. All with their chest burst open.

Bobby and Uly hurried forward before anyone could stop them.

"Whoa, this guy has two heads!" exclaimed Bobby.

"And here's one that has spikes coming out of his body, even his head!" said Uly.

"This guy is like the bigger brother of the creature from the Black Lagoon," Bobby said of another one of the bodies.

"And this guy has a really long tail."

"Sounds familiar, doesn't it?" said Jack, from behind them.

"What do you mean?" asked Sigmund, who had come up with the others.

"Those creatures that attacked us and took Holly and the others away; they were all unique in some way. One was aquatic, one had spikes, one had a long tail and-"

"-one had two heads." Diana shivered. "You are saying those things that attacked us came out of the chests of these corpses, right?"

"It looks that way," he said. "Borrowing genetic traits along the way."

"Then why would they take Sheila and the others?" asked Bobby.

Jack was silent for a moment. Sela answered. "To incubate eggs in a host body."

Everyone paled, including Sigmund. Then they heard a soft mewling sound.

"That's Uni!"

Bobby ran down the wall of white resin before anyone could do anything but follow. He stopped at a place in the wall and began pulling at the white sticky stuff. "It's Uni! The others are here, too."

Sela stood guard as the others worked on freeing those trapped in the resin. They were all there: Uni the small unicorn, Sheila, Presto, Holly, Chiana, and Khan. Even the Sleestak bowman was there.

Hank pulled the moist warm white resin off Sheila who stood up groggily.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

She groaned weakly but managed to pull him forward and surprise him with a gentle kiss. "I knew you'd come and rescue us," she said in a quiet voice.

"Ah." Hank was taken off guard. This was not the place he had expected their first kiss to take place. He glanced around, and noted that only a wide-eyed Bobby had been the only one to see what had transpired.

"Holly! Are you all right? What happened?" Will worked frantically to get the resin off his sister. Their uncle, Jack, was freeing the Sleestak next to her. "Jack, she isn't saying anything!"

"Give her a moment to breathe," was his uncle's response. "The resin might produce an anesthetic response."

Chiana was pulled out with the aid of True and Uly. Diana worked on getting Presto out while Sigmund tried using his tentacles to free Khan Noonien Singh. The seaweed creature had freed some of the resin, which roused Khan. Khan rallied his remaining strength and forced himself through his resin bonds.

He looked around like a madman. Sighting what he wanted, he tackled Ace and pulled away the phaser rifle she had slung over her shoulder.

"Khan!" shouted Sela. "They're on our side!"

He ignored her and charged past everyone, opening fire with the phaser on the large tulip bulb-like eggs.

"What's he doing?" Bobby said, scratching his head, and then stopping once he noticed the resin still sticking to his fingers.

Chiana wiped her face clear of the gunk. "He's killing them. I hope he kills them all."

"What happened?" asked True.

A look of horror crossed Sheila's face. "I remember. Oh God! I remember!" She grabbed her chest. "I'm dead! I'm as good as dead!"

Hank held onto her. "What? What happened here?"

An alien screech filled the small cavern. Some of the bulbs that hadn't been destroyed yet flowered open and small crab-like creatures with long spindly legs and a long tail scuttled out with surprising speed.

"Hank! Kill them! Kill them or you're dead, too!" cried Sheila.

Sela caught on first and fired on the crab-like things coming toward them and killed two outright while the other scattered. "Those things must do the incubating inside people and then burst out."

"Close," Presto said, from where he sat on the ground. "They put the embryo inside us to incubate." He lifted up a hand-sized dead crab creature up from next to him. "Then they fall off and die."

Sigmund placed a tentacle on Presto's shoulder. "I think I can sense the embryo inside of him. It's growing and will soon come out."

Hank was firing for all he was worth at the egg things with his energy bow when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. "The adults are back!" He shot at one that was covered in spikes but it turned and darted to the side, but the arrow did strike another xenomorph behind it.

An incredibly long tail lanced out and struck Khan in the leg with the barb at the end. "Aaargh!" Khan twisted away and the barb broke off leaving it imbedded in his thigh. He tried to draw a bead on his attacker but it disappeared in the shadows.

Chiana leapt over and helped Khan to his feet. She was about to turn him around and walk him over to the others when one of the beefier xenomorphs dropped from the ceiling landing on top of them.

Sela almost fired at the xenomorph on top of Khan and Chiana, when Diana leapt in the way. "No! The acid blood will spill all over them!"

The alien creature sniffed at the two people underneath it, while it's mandibles twitched just inches from them. Khan wanted to kill it even if it meant his death but Chiana restrained him. "It smells the embryos inside us," she said in a quiet tone. "It won't kill us if it can help it. But that won't stop it from maiming us so we can't fight them."

"Tell me something I don't already know, alien!" he spat.

While everyone hesitated, Bobby moved. The xenomorph lashed out with it's tail, but Bobby was ready for it and smashed it away with his magic club. Unprepared for that, the xenomorph reared up just in time to be struck in the face with the club which crushed it's skull while also lifted it up and away over twenty feet where it slammed into a stalagmite, which quickly dissolved away. A crab-like thing jumped at him and he automatically smashed it. "I'm glad this club is magical, or I don't think it would last long against these things."

"There more coming!" shouted someone. They are moved back hoping that by forming a circle that they could keep the savages creatures at bay.

"Ready, Will?"

"Ready, Jack!"

Both men held a blue and a green crystal in each hand. They waited, while Sela, Khan and Hank shot any crab-scurriers and adult xenomorphs. Then, at the last moment when a two large crab clawed xenomophs were almost upon them, Will and Jack brought the crystals together, and the attackers were rebuffed by a force field.

The xenomorphs went into a frenzy battering themselves against the invisible barrier.

"On my mark we'll let it down and you can shoot them," said Jack.

Those with long-range weapons took aim. When Jack shouted now, he and Will separated the crystals and the others fired their weapons, effectively killing those closest.

There was another surge at them and Will and Jack erected the force field again.

"Oh, they didn't like that," said Ace. "We should do it again."

"We're going to have to do something," said Will. "These force fields have a very short life span."

"Oh, that's not good news," muttered Ace.

"I could start shuttling people away," said Uly, unsure if that was really what he should do.

Bobby brightened up. "That's right. He's got a power that lets him travel through the ground like it was air."

Hank took Uly by the arm. "Can you get us all out of here?"

"Ah, well, a few at a time."

"And you can find a safe place and come back here?"

"Um, you see, I'm still working on backtracking. I can figure out the whole which way is up and down by the pull of gravity. And I can usually keep my bearings by feeling a planetary magnetic pole, but this place doesn't have one. I'll probably get lost."

A noise from where they had entered the cavern interrupted everything. A man wearing a loincloth and brandishing a sword charged forward with a mighty roar. A man in a white and green space suit followed. Behind them others of their group speculated what to do.

One of the others was a young teenage girl who wore a hat. One of the crab-like things launched itself at her and planted itself on her face with its long tail wrapped tightly around her neck. The girl struggled for a second and then melted into a large glob of liquid silver. The liquid glob twisted away from the face-hugging creature and reformed into a girl form a few feet away. The crab creature launched at her again, but this time was caught in mid-flight by the hands of something just as fast.

Kyle held the crab thing in both hands and studied it. "I'm not sure what it is but it seemed to want to be on your head. Shall I hold on to it?"

"Ye-Yeah, sure. Just don't let it loose again," Alex said, backing away, adjusting her hat and wiping her face profusely.

Another of the face-huggers launched itself at another member of her group. "Cassie!" Alex cried. She pointed her finger and managed to grab small crab creature with her telekinesis. Then she bashed it against a rock where it sizzled.

"Thanks!" said Cassie.

"Look! Their bodily fluids are like acid!"

Kyle noted this reaction and threw the small monster he was holding against a nearby wall with incredible force where it splattered.

Conan charged forward meeting one of the dark demons directly and cut it's head off with a swing of his long sword. Movement to his side caught his notice and he used his blade to bat away one of the crab creatures that had flung itself at his head. It was then he noticed that his sword was beginning to dissolve. Scowling, he thrust the blade into the abdomen of another attacking creature and pinned it to the side of the cave wall like a bug specimen.

"Get down!" said the green and white armored figure behind the barbarian. Buzz Lightyear used his wrist blasters to blast more of the oncoming xenomorphs. "Here use this," he said, tossing Conan a hilt. "It's a vibro-sword. You tighten your grip on the hilt and it will produce a blade. The blade is made out of sound so as long as you don't get any blood on the hilt it should serve you well."

Conan nodded and slashed another off to his right. A few drops of the xenomorph blood touched his shoulder but he wiped it off before it burned too bad and moved to face another demon of the dark.

Buzz raised his wrists to fire again, but something slammed into his clear, collapsible visor. The face-hugger tried repeatedly to jam its tubular proboscis toward Buzz's mouth but the visor kept it out, plus his suit kept it's tail from being able to choke him. Getting his hands on some of the legs, Buzz managed to pull it off though it left faint scratches on his visor. It struggled in his fingers wanting to bite him if nothing else. It spit up something on his left wrist and his suit began to sizzle. "Yow!" he yelled and threw the beastie away. He quickly loosened the armor off his arm and tossed it down.

He turned and fired with his other wrist blaster on another xenomorph as it attacked. "These things may actually be a challenge."

Behind him the rest of his team were shaking off their shock.

"So you got a morph form to fight these things?" asked Ben.

The black girl raised an eyebrow. "Probably one better than yours." She eyed him. "If that was a challenge, that is?"

"Girls first," he said.

Cassie concentrated as her neck stretched upwards to seven feet and her body took on a darkish green color. Her mouth formed into sharp beak but she retained her teeth. Her knees bent backwards while her legs lengthen and she grew a spiky tail. Blades appeared on her wrists, arms, knees, and forehead. She stretched and charged forward.

"Hey! I thought you could just do Earth animals!" accused Ben. "What is that anyway?"

A small white dog with black-rimmed glasses and a bowtie stood next to him. "Unless I'm mistaken, that's a Hork-Bajir. Despite their appearances they are usually quite peaceful."

Ben shrugged. "I guess you'd know, Mr. Peabody. But right now I know it is time for me to get into the action." He reached down and activated the Omnitrix on his left wrist. The change happened in seconds as Ben became a tall light-green crystal humanoid. "Ah, man. I wanted to become Fourarms or Wildmutt. Oh well, Diamondhead is pretty good for this type of fighting." He rushed forward, catching a face-hugger with one of his hands and encased it in crystal before dashing it against the skull of a xenomorph about to attack Buzz Lightyear from behind.

One of the alien beasts landed on his head and he batted at it, finally pulling it off with one hand and then bashing it with the other. "Yow! It burns!" He looked down at his hands, which were dissolving. "Oh, now that's not nice." He concentrated and the dissolved crystal began to be replaced by fresh crystal. "Alright, you nightmares, let's see you try that again!" An alien with an incredibly long tail wrapped it round and round Ben, pining his arms to his chest, then five beasts jumped on top of him from the shadows, biting into his crystal form.

Ben flailed about and his Ominitrix device flared it's emergency signal. Ben began to change again. This time his form was not bothered by the biting, clawing, stabbing monsters. His form had become one of living fire with a humanoid shape. "Yeah! Heatblast is the perfect alien form to go against these things!" He flared up his powers and all the aliens on him dropped dead, including one from the ceiling that had had the extremely long tail.

_Ben! These things have highly corrosive blood!_ shouted Cassie in his mind.

"Tell me something I don't know! Hey! You're telepathic, too?"

_Just when I'm in another shape_, she thought him. _And I had to change mine, too, by the way. I'm now the polar bear. The way their blood is eating at me I'll probably take on my elephant shape next_.

He sent a blast of fire at some of the xenomorphs coming up behind the polar bear who was mauling one of their brood. Her white coat of fur was covered with red blood, which Ben knew must have been hers. "Be careful. I've got your back. Leave the more dangerous stuff to me!"

Just then a large splash from the small cave pool hit him. He only had a moment to flare up before the water hit him, but it was just enough to save him from being totally smothered. Then he watched as a large aquatic alien jumped out of the pool and Ben knew he had a fight on his hands.

As the battle raged on, the rest of the group gathered around Mr. Peabody.

"You don't expect all of us to go out there, do you?" Hurley asked the unusual canine. His look of terror was on everybody's faces.

"No, of course not. We wouldn't survive. Well, you most likely would because of that jinx on you that attracts troubles near you but doesn't let harm befall you."

"Wait! I thought that witch doctor fellow we bumped into, Dr. Bombay, he said this lei he gave me would block it."

Mr. Peabody sighed. Personally, he believed it was all in Hurley's head, but since coming here he had seen a number of things that he couldn't explain just yet. "You mostly likely wouldn't have to fight so just stay here with me."

"Man, I hope I'm just imagining all this and I'm really back in the institution."

Hadji Quest-Singh twisted in the air and caught one of the crab thingies before it could attach itself to Hurley. He struggled with it but kept it still

Hurley stared at the quivering creature. "Whoa."

Hadji eyed it curiously. "Perhaps these things are merely defending their nest. If we leave, then they may stop attacking us."

"Maybe so," said Jack Sparrow, "But I don't think they are going to just give us that option." He turned and fired one of his pistols at one of the alien monsters rushing toward them from behind them. The lead slug penetrated the young xenomorph's braincase and it fell dead.

"Oh God! We're surrounded!" cried Hurley.

"No, I think it was a latecomer," expressed Jim Taggart. "What are these creatures?"

"Unknown," said Mr. Peabody. "But judging from the bodies trapped in the resin with the chest cavities broken open, I would guess that these creatures," he tapped the creature struggling in Hadji's grasp with a cane, "either crawl down the throats of their intended victims or else they plant an embryo for these larger creatures in the hosts stomach area."

"Please tell me you are kidding," Hurley whispered.

"He's not kidding," said Johnny Smith. "You have a good hold on that?" he asked Hadji. Hadji nodded. "I want to try something."

"Well, be quick about it, mate," said Jack Sparrow. He had already had to use one of his throwing knives to kill another of the smaller attacking monsters. Now he was feverishly trying to reload his pistol. "We could be called upon to die at any moment.

Johnny grabbed onto the face-hugger's tail and closed his eyes. His head jerked to the left and then to the right. Finally he fell back and Kyle caught him.

"Johnny?" Kyle said.

"It…it was all so alien. There's a mother figure here somewhere. The mother of all these things."

Jim Taggart nodded. "That fits into my theories." He saw some confusion. "I'm a cryptozoologist as well as a animal containment specialist."

Alex blinked. "You're a dog catcher?"

Mr. Peabody raised an eyebrow in Taggart's direction, waiting for his response.

Taggart sighed. "Where I work, the animals are smarter and more dangerous than you could imagine."

Jack Sparrow shot another oncoming adult xenomorph, only this time it was not a killing blow. Alex had to raise a hand and shot it back with an electrical charge, then lifted a large boulder telekinetically and dropped it on top of the stunned beast effectively killing it.

Taggart shrugged. "Ok, maybe you can imagine. But I can tell you this much, in my opinion, those things will try to kill us even if we do get out of here alive."

"I agree," said Johnny Smith.

Hurley groaned. "Great, we can agree that these things are going to do their best to kill us. Can we agree to do something to save ourselves?"

Mr. Peabody scratched his chin. "Hmm, I think we would dramatically increase our chances of getting out of here if we had those other people with us. Alex, do you think you can flow over there and ask them to come over here?"

"On my way, chief!" Alex's features melted into quicksilver. Then the ball of liquid silver turned and pour down the slight incline and on toward the other group.

As she took form again she had an energy arrow pointed directly at her face. "Er? I come in peace?"

The blond bowman hesitated, but a call over his shoulder drew his attention. "Hank? Something's happening to Uni!"

The small unicorn was shaking on it's feet; wisps of resin stuck to her orange mane.

"We have to help her!"

"She's going to die," said Presto in a quiet voice. "We all are."

"Don't say that!" Will stood defiantly over Presto. "If that is your decision that just crawl back into that white stuff they cocooned you in and wait for it to happen! As for the rest of us, we are going to save Holly and the others!"

"He's right though," said Khan. He had allowed Ace to have the phaser back as the pain in his gut was starting to match that in his leg. "These things inside us are going to kill us. And only a miracle can save us."

Sheila looked up from where she had been sobbing on her brother's shoulder. "Or magic!"

"Oh no," groaned Presto.

"You gotta do it, Presto!" begged Bobby. "That last spell you did was amazing!"

"I was hypnotized by Enik! He isn't even here!" protested Presto. "I can't do anything like that again!"

"Wait!" Khan raised a hand. "If he is hypnotized, he could possibly save us?"

Hank nodded. Then turned to fire more energy arrows at more of the creatures trying to attack them.

Khan reached over and snagged Presto's green cloak and pulled him over. "You will look at me, boy. And you will concentrate. I can have you hypnotized before you know it." He stared into Presto's eyes and held them. Then after a few moments he snapped his fingers and Presto's head went slack. "Listen to me, my red-head friend. You will become what your friends expect of you and you will use that ability to save us. Now do it!"

Presto's head snapped up, a sure grin on his face, and he grabbed his magician's hat off his head. Waving his fingers over the opening, he spoke in a surprisingly sure tone. _"Magic hat! It's time to go to bat! Inside us is an alien life, now take it out and send it back before there is anymore strife!" _

Seven balls of light popped out of Presto's hat and floated to those inflicted with the embryos. Bobby held out Uni as one of the balls of light went down and into the little unicorn. Will leaned up his weakened sister as one of the glowing globe descended towards her. The Sleestak bowman hesitated, uncertain of what to do, stood still and let the magic balls do their work. So did the others. Even Presto, stood there like the Statue of Liberty only not only was the hat he was holding high glowing, so was his abdomen. The balls of light lit bright and stayed glowing for almost a minute before they all rose up floating above the group.

"Is that the monster babies in there?" asked Alex.

The little fiendish creatures where not fully grown, but they could see that one was paler that the others, another had a small horn on its forehead, and another one had large crab claws for hands. They twisted and turned in their confinement, but there was no escape. Suddenly all seven globes flew to the far side of the cave and there was a sudden burst of light as they slammed into the ovipositor of a fifteen foot xenomorph that had been hidden in the darkness.

"I think we found momma," Diana said in awe.

Alex Mack nodded. "Which brings me back to the reason I came over here. If you guys can get your group over to my friends over there, we have a way out."

"It's gone!" Holly stood up. She still felt weak as the embryo had sucked up a lot of her body's nutrients. She hugged her brother and uncle. Then she saw Sela. "You came! Thank you so much."

Sela blushed, but turned to fire on another xenomorph to hide her embarrassment. "We still have to get out of here. You can thank me then."

Chiana, now feeling much better now that she had a possibility of surviving, looked over to where the potential exit was. "Now we just have to figure out how to get safely from here to there."

"Have no fear!" said Presto. "I merely have to-"

A face-hugging alien leaped out of the shadows and was on Presto's face before anyone could stop it.

True screamed while Chiana tried ripping it off Presto's head.

"It's going to put another one of those things in him," cried Sheila.

Alex came over to Presto. "Move over but keep a tight hold of that thing," she told Chiana. Then she took both of Presto's hands into hers.

Alex's features melted into silver as she once more became a liquid ball. Still attached to Presto, his features also began taking on a silvery color as he seemed to melt into Alex's ball, minus the crab creature that had been on his face.

Chiana jerked the face-hugger away keeping it tight in her grip and stepped back a number of steps. "Was that supposed to happen?"

The ball of silver moved just a little and then took on shape again; two shapes appeared. Alex stood there just in back of Presto to keep him from loosing his balance.

"What-What just happened?" asked a startled Presto, as he adjusted the glasses on his nose. The hypnotic trance was definitely over.

Diana gave him a hug. "It's quite a story and I'll tell you later."

A horrific alien screech drew everyone's attention to across the cavern.

Alex glanced around. But the darkness was everywhere again. "Where's Ben? He was the fiery guy who was burning all the things while giving off a lot of light."

Sela looked around. Her night vision was better than most thanks to her genetic heritage. "Something must have happened to him while Presto was doing his magic act."

Another screech filled the cavern and the children cowered.

Hank sent over one of his glowing arrows over, which revealed the Queen xenomorph thrashing and twisting as she tried to bite at her own swollen abdomen.

"That's got to be the mother of these things. But what is she doing?" Uly asked. "Hey! Where's Sigmund going?"

The sentient sea plant creature was heading down the slope and entered the pond of the cave before anyone could ask him what he was doing.

"A coward," said Khan. "He couldn't take the strain of fighting."

Hank sent out an energy arrow to flare up on the far side of the cavern. The mother alien could be seen biting into her enormous egg-swollen of her lower torso. A second set of mandibles came out of the queen mother's mouth, bit into her egg sac and tore something out.

"It's the embryo creatures that were in us!" shouted Sheila. "When Presto took them out of us he sent the little monsters back into their mother!"

"I did?" exclaimed Presto, still trying to catch up.

Jack Marshall brought out a pair of binoculars out. "Okay, shoot another one over there, just a little higher though. I don't want to be blinded." Hank followed through with the request, firing another flare shot and Jack told them what he saw. "The babies are tearing her apart trying to get out. They're destroying a lot of the eggs in her, too."

"Good," said Khan. "Maybe they'll kill each other, too."

Ace lifted up a canister from her pack. "If not, then maybe this'll finish them off."

Khan eyed with speculation. "What is it?"

She smiled. "I call it Nitro-9. A little something I whipped up that could really bring the roof down on this place."

"An explosive device," commented Sela. "That should kill off the rest of these things."

"Well, can we leave now then, right?" Alex said. The xenomorphs were not attacking anymore. Instead they hurried to the Queen to try protect her, but they didn't know how.

"Now would be an excellent time to lead," said Jack.

"Right," said Ace. She set a timer on her Nitro-9 canister and placed it down.

Alex led the way while Jack helped Khan with walking. They led there way across the cavern toward Alex's friends. Midway there they encountered a limping buffalo, a space man with holes melted in parts of his suit, and an almost naked barbarian holding a thin length of stalagmite for a weapon.

"Cassie?" asked Alex, assuming the buffalo had to be her shape changing friend.

_I can't find Ben_, thought Cassie frantically.

"Look!" cried Holly. "It's Sigmund! He's dragging one of those things from the water!"

_He's dragging Ben from the water! I can sense Ben's thoughts from the creature being dragged up,_ Cassie thought to everyone. _Ben must have gained the DNA of these creatures shape in his Omnitrix while he was fighting with them. _

Will nodded, as he was catching up. "And somehow Sigmund knew Ben was down there. Stunned by the look of him."

The xenomorph fell onto the ground and quickly changed shape into the youthful form of Ben Tennyson. He coughed and rolled on his side. He looked up at all the faces around him. "When that aquatic monster knocked me in the pond, my Omnitrix switched me to my Ripjaws persona. We fought underwater but even that thing wasn't prepared for something that was part alligator, part eel and part leech. And then when it finally thought it had me, my Omnitrix had gotten it's DNA and turned me into a version of it. I managed to kill it but not before getting injured and stuck down there. I probably would have drowned if this fellow hadn't come along."

Sigmund collapsed before anyone could congratulate him.

"What's wrong with Sigmund?" cried Holly.

Sela scanned Sigmund but was not surprised by the results. "He's dying."

"What? Why?"

"Because he went in that pool. There must be a large amount of that acidic blood split in it from that boy's fight with the other creature he was talking about. Most likely Sigmund had had to swim into the most concentrated area of that pool to pull the boy out. It poisoned him."

Holly moved to go to Sigmund but Jack held her back. "He's slowly being eaten alive. If you touch him, you'll be burned."

"I can't even touch him?" She knew it was true. She went over and knelt by the dying sea monster. "Sigmund?"

"Ah, it-it doesn't hurt much," Sigmund weakly said. His color was turning brown before their eyes. "I think that was the bravest thing of my life." He sighed.

"It-it really was brave," Holly said. "And I don't think anyone else could have done it."

"We need to go!" urged Conan.

"I'll say!" said Ace. "The timer on the bomb is clicking away the seconds." That roused them.

"But what about Sigmund?" Holly asked.

"It'll be a fitting burial," said Jack.

"I guess," she conceded.

They hurried to join Mr. Peabody and the others when a large alien covered in spikes leaped down. Conan ducked as it swiped at him, then, using the long, thin stalagmite he was carrying as a spear, he thrust it straight into the xenomorph's mouth and it came out the other side of it's head, killing it.

Kyle, Johnny, Jim, Hadji and Hurley hurried forward to help the weaker travelers. Conan carried Chiana who was enjoying the experience. Ben, Cassie, Holly, Uni and Khan all needed help with hurrying while others managed to keep up.

"Follow me," Mr. Peabody said to a number of amazed people. But no one was ready to ask questions just them. There was a bomb about to go off and the xenomorph queen was still shrieking. They needed to get out of there.

As they cleared the tunnel opening, Mr. Peabody had them all move off to move side. A few moments later a large explosion underground could be felt and dust and smoke flew out of the tunnel like a cannon.

As they caught their breaths and began giving first aid to those that needed it, Diana, Jack Marshall and Mr. Peabody were sharing their circumstances on how they had arrived there. "Cybernetic hive enslavement, you say?" pondered Mr. Peabody. "I wish we could help but I've gathered this group, plus a few I didn't really need to rescue my boy, Sherman. He's being held captive by an evil genius by the name of Dr. Emilio Lizardo and an evil military mastermind named Warlord Shank. I've promised to get everyone back to their perspective homes with the use of my WABAC machine through which I travel through time and space." He scratched his chin. "Still, if we do succeed in a fair amount of time, perhaps I can convince the others to come help you in your quest to conquer these cyborgs."

"That sounds great," said Diana. "Meanwhile, we'll go and find Eric and the others and try see what we can do."

"Thank you, Mr. Peabody," Jack said as he awkwardly shook the dog's hand. "Hey, Khan! Sela!"

Both Sela and Khan looked up from where they had been quietly conversing while Sela applied medical treatments to his leg. They spoke a few more quick whispers while Jack headed toward them.

"Dudes!" yelled Hurley, as he quickly backed toward the tunnel. "Dinosaur!"

Grumpy the Tyrannosaur was indeed heading their way. Possible attracted by the recent commotion and hoping to find something wounded to eat. Everyone started toward the tunnels.

"Stop!" shouted Hadji. He didn't have to explain himself as everyone could see the battered form of the young xenomorph queen stepping out into the sunlight.

"My God!" exclaimed Jim Taggart. "She must have torn off her own ovipositor to come after us before the explosion."

Jack Sparrow shook his finger at him. "If you mean she tore off he own egg sack, then for the love of God, just say she tore off her own egg sack."

"What are we going to do?" screamed True.

Bobby looked from the dinosaur to the xenomorph. "Why not just let them fight it out. We could just step to the side and maybe miss the whole thing."

"I like his plan," said Jack Sparrow. "See, nice and simple, and not complicated by lots of big words."

Nobody argued but moved quickly toward the tree line. The fifteen foot tall xenomorph queen stormed after them, but Grumpy, who had poor eyesight, determined to attack the larger target.

The xenomorph, slowed by blood loss, physical trauma and a cave explosion, was slowed down just enough for Grumpy to bite into her side. She squealed as new marks of pain found her and she lashed out, stabbing the large carnivore in the thigh with her barbed tail.

Grumpy, fueled by the unexpected pain in his thigh from the tail and his mouth from the acidic blood, attacked with even more fervor, this time stepping on the xenomorph's tail first. They bit and clawed at each other while those who watched did so with wonder, enthusiasm, horror and remorse.

Both monsters were mortally wounded and yet they struggled against each other. As Grumpy tore off one of her front limbs with what remained of his jaws, the alien queen saw an opening and shot out her extra set of jaws into the dinosaur's chest and bit a hole in his heart.

"Grumpy!" cried Holly, tears were flowing with great sobs.

As Grumpy fell dead, the xenomorph turned her head to them again, staggering forward.

"Time to end this," said Sela. The Romulan commander raised her phaser up. "On three."

Khan nodded and agreement. He brought up his phaser to bear. "One," said the genetically enhanced man.

Hank knew at this point it would be a mercy killing for the monster, but he still didn't like it. He just had to do it. "Two," the young ranger said, aiming his energy bow.

Buzz Lightyear raised his remaining wrist-blaster up and took aim. "Three," said the space commando.

The alien xenomorph was virtually disintegrated where she stood. Only the steaming acid holes in the ground marked that she had been there.

In stunned silence they went about treating themselves and gathering food. They would rest for now and then go their separate ways. They both still had other battles to fight, but they didn't want to think about them now. Instead they watched as a group of children danced around with a young unicorn, some would trade stories of other adventures, but mostly they just sat and thought of others that they wanted to get back to.

AUTHOR'S NOTES 

_The alien xenomorphs with the mandibles are a Xenomorph-Predator hybrid. The alien xenomorphs with the large claw hands are a Xenomorph-Sleestak hybrid. The other unusual looking ones come from the Skeletor team that the aliens used by host embryos. The aquatic one is from Mer-Man. The long tailed one came from Whiplash. The one with spikes all over it came from Spikor. And the two-headed xenomorph came from Two-Bad. Fun stuff, huh?_

_Some of you may be wondering why I've introduced even more characters. Well, it's been the holidays which meant I got to spend more time over at my in-laws watching as one of my brother-in-laws hogged the computer playing Warcraft online. I'd pester him by standing in back of him and ask a whole bunch of irrelevant questions. One stuck with me when I asked who this other group was that had suddenly come up and was fighting the same monsters his group was fighting. His answer was that there were lots of groups going around fighting things for various reasons and sometimes they'd help each other without being asked. So I thought that might be an interesting way to help out our heroes against the Xenomorphs._

**CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982)**

Conan – (Arnold Schwarzenegger)

**BUZZ LIGHTYEAR OF STAR COMMAND (2000 – 2001)**

Buzz Lightyear – (Patrick Warburtin or Tim Allen)

**SECRET WORLD OF ALEX MACK**

Alexandra 'Alex' Mack – (Larisa Oleynik)

**KYLE XY (2006 - ?)**

Kyle – (Matt Dallas)

**ANIMORPHS book series(1996 – 2001)**

Cassie

**BEN 10 (2005 – ?)**

Ben Tennyson – (Tara Strong)

**ROCKY AND HIS FRIENDS (1959 – 1964)**

'_**Peabody's Improbable History'**_

Mr. Peabody – (Walter Tetley)

Sherman (mentioned only)

**BEWITCHED (1964 – 1972)**

Dr. Bombay – (Bernard Fox) (mentioned only)

**PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL (2003)**

Jack Sparrow – (Johnny Depp)

**THE DEAD ZONE (2002 – ?)**

Johnny Smith – (Anthony Michael Hall)

**JOHNNY QUEST (1964 – 1965)**

Hadji Quest-Singh – (Danny Bravo)

**LOST (2004 – ?)**

Hugo 'Hurley' Reyes – (Jorge Garcia)

**EUREKA (2006 – ?)**

Jim Taggart – (Matt Frewer)

**THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZI ACROSS THE 8****TH**** DIMENSION** (1984)

Dr. Emilio Lizardo – (John Lithgow)

**SPACE CASES (1996 – 1997)**

Warlord Shank – (George Takei)


	16. Chapter 16

**A TANGLED WEB 8:16**

**By Ordinaryguy2**

**ACT 1 - **

Studying the sensor readouts on the computer, the Master smiled to himself. The Borg Queen was proving to be a worthy adversary once she had adapted the drones to follow pre-set orders before walking into the field he had created to block the function of the Borg Collective. These weren't suicide missions she was sending her drones on, but learning maneuvers before a surgical strike.

Some of his team had already fallen to these attacks. Mad Hatter, Queen Bee, Icicle, Leech, Vultak, Tomax, Xamot and a number of Shredder's Foot ninjas and Hordak's Horde Troopers had been subjected to the Borg nano-probes and led back to the Borg stronghold before his side had been able to restore the field that blocked the Collective communication. Almost the same number of people had been infected by the nano-probes and not made it back to the Borg for full assimilation.

Dr. Sivana, along with T.O. Morrow, Thinker, Wotan, Mr. Mind and Modulok, had worked on safely removing the nano-probes from those that they had managed to keep from leaving. Dr, Sivana's daughter, Georgia, was one of those inflicted which is why he insisted on being in charge of the operation. Trickster, the Gambler and Dr. Mindbender and a few of the Hand ninjas had already died while trying to be purged. It was to be expected as many of the experiments were trying to learn the weaknesses of the drones and ways to exploit them. This being the case, Sivana insisted on being the only one to work on his daughter. Those still being experimented on were the Black Manta, Rattler, Jitsu, Sisto, more of the Hand ninjas and some of the cyborg Horde troopers. The Master suspected that either he or Brainiac could solve the problem a lot quicker but they both had more important issues to deal with. Brainiac in particular needed to keep constant surveillance on the jamming frequency used to block the Borg Collective. His computer mind was the only one capable of keeping up with the adaptations the Borg tried.

"They are ready for you," said General Traag, who's orange silicon body stood at attention. He was enjoying the position of power that the Master had given him.

The Master stood up with a sigh. "I suppose I must deal with this now." He turned to Brainiac. "Let me know immediately if there is any drone activity on the delta zone. They have been building up numbers there but it may just be a diversion."

Brainiac frowned slightly at the implication that he might not have also reached that conclusion.

Those working nearby ceased their activities as the Master approached. He drew himself up as he addressed them. "As I'm sure you are all well aware, an attempt was made on my life in the last hour."

There were a few surprised looks, but most had a look of mild interest. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Deadshot accepting a hundred dollar bill from the Penguin who had evidently lost a bet.

"General Traag, bring forth the culprit that endangered my life, and thus everyone else's as well."

Traag motioned the Dummy, a living wooden ventriloquist dummy, to come forward. "Where do you want him, Boss?" asked the Dummy, holding something within his two hands that he had cupped together.

The Master pointed to a small long stone that could have been a short bench. "Over there."

The Dummy nodded. "Alright there you go." He scrapped the alien insect off of his hands and onto the rock.

"You ruffian!" shouted Mr. Mind through the miniature loudspeaker that he carried at his side. He twisted to right himself on the rock. "You'll pay for that indignity!" Mr. Mind was a two-inch long green and black alien caterpillar with an intelligence as great as that of Luthor or Sivana.

The Master leaned down to look at the tiny villainous mastermind. "Mr. Mind, you took control of one of disconnected drones and tried to kill me by proxy. If it hadn't been for Solomon Grundy's quick actions to crush the drone you may have even succeeded." Solomon Grundy, a tall, muscular super-strong albino zombie grinned from the attention, but as usual, he didn't really know what was going on.

"Seemed like the thing to do at the time," shrugged the alien caterpillar in a casual manner.

"I see," replied the time-lord. "Then you will understand when I do this." He rose up his right foot and stomped it down, grinding the tiny alien genius into a smear on the surface of the rock.

He glanced around at all the people staring at the greenish smear on the rock. "I hope now the message is clear as to what will happen to anyone else that tries to kill me." He turned and marched away. He had plans to make. Plans within plans.

Luthor and Brainiac glanced at each other. They understood the implications of the Master's warning but it did not detour them. They did not plan on being in the servitude of the Master much longer.

**ACT 2 - **

Bossk stumbled on the path they were walking down. He knew he was going into shock due to blood loss and physical trauma, but his cyborg companion insisted that they continue in hopes of catching up to his elusive prey, Sarah Connor. Personally, Bossk thought that the cyborg next to him may have a couple of circuits shorting, but that just made the killer machine even more dangerous in his eyes. But the Trandoshan was more concerned what would happen to him once the cyborg learned that he had been misleading it when he suggested that one of the women he had seen earlier could have been the Sarah Connor that it was looking for.

Why he still considered it a cyborg after the ball-like creatures had eaten off all it's external flesh, he wasn't sure. Maybe because it still presented a certain sense of mayhem that it wore like a second skin.

Behind him, he sensed the cyborg stop. The last time that had happened they had had to wait as a large stegosaurus crossed the path in front of them. "Now what?"

"We are surrounded," it said, as it turned it's head to survey the surroundings.

Bossk glanced around. "Are you sure?"

"You're surrounded!" came a shout. "Throw down your weapons and you won't be harmed!"

Bossk snorted in disgust and frustration. He recognized that voice as belonging to the dark skinned Human that he had fought with earlier. Sisko was his name. "It's that group I mentioned earlier. The one that might have the woman you are looking for."

That seemed to be all the T-800 cyborg unit need to hear. It raised up one the blaster rifle it had taken from IG-88 and fired repeatedly at a nearby tree trunk until it was severed. As the tree fell, a figure dove away from behind it while another had to leap away to another tree over thirty-feet up.

The terminator unit threw one of the Yautja homing shurikens at the man up in the trees, while continuing to shoot with the blaster rifle at the other person on the ground.

Bossk dropped to the ground and rolled the best he could behind an old stump. He only had the Klingon blade on him. He held it and grinned. Perhaps he'd have a chance to return it. And with the T-800 shooting at everything, the Star Fleeters might be killed, thus fulfilling Bossk's agreement with the Master. And Boba Fett would be shut out of all the benefits.

A phaser beam struck near the metallic cyborg, causing the killer bot to aim at the new target. It charged forward leaving the wounded Trandoshan bounty hunter behind.

Bossk watched as shooting went on around him and he cursed in frustration. "By the dregs of Kessel! If only the cyborg had left me a weapon to shoot!" But then fate intervened and the man climbing in the trees came crashing to the ground with Boba Fett on top of him.

"Fett!" Bossk grasped with all his might on the handle of the Klingon knife in his hand as an idea sprang into his devious mind. As Batman and Boba Fett traded blows, Bossk struggled to his feet and hurried toward them.

He raised the blade to swing it when the Klingon warrior stepped from behind one of the trees and fired his phaser, striking Bossk. He stumbled and fell onto the ground.

"Enough!" shouted Martok.

Batman, a.k.a. Terry McGinnis, rolled away from Boba Fett after knocking the bounty hunter's blaster away. He was breathing hard, and pressed a hand to the gash at his hip where the Yautja shuriken the T-800 unit had thrown at him had just nicked him. Fett had used that distraction to get close and try to take out the Batman, but had not been prepared for his resourcefulness.

"Look's like your friend won't be any more help for you," Martok said, as he prodded Bossk over onto his back. The Trandoshan had fallen on Martok's blade and it had killed him.

Boba Fett kept his hands in plain sight. "More than likely he was planning to kill me as well."

"No love lost between you two, huh," said Batman, who was applying something to his cut from one of his pouches.

The jungle was silent again. Batman looked around. "Where's the killer erector set?"

Martok, having retrieved his knife, was cleaning it with some leaves while keeping his phaser on Boba Fett. "They knocked it down over there. Spock wiped up a miniature electromagnetic pulse that stopped it cold. That's why I was able to head over here and check on you."

"I'm glad," said Batman. "Regardless of who the reptile man would have tried to kill first, I'm sure he would have tried for me sooner or later." He got up with only the barest of a wince. "Lead the way."

Martok motioned for the bounty hunter to precede them. As they came to where a group of people were gathered around the fallen figure of the terminator unit, more people trained their weapons on the bounty hunter.

Admiral McCoy looked up from where he was treating Ro Laren for a burn on her arm. He had just applied a hypospray and was in the midst of putting it away when he reached for his tricorder. "Let me guess. Either this is our sniper or we're taking in strays."

"He's our sniper," Martok confirmed. The one-eyed Klingon pushed the bounty hunter toward a fallen log. "Sit down!" he commanded.

McCoy scanned the armored man and was surprised by the readings. "I could be wrong, but I think he's a clone."

Spock, who had been about to start a scan on the fallen cyborg, looked over in interest. "Fascinating." He didn't notice that the tricorder he held had started to download itself into the fallen android.

"We want answers," insisted Captain Picard. "Starting with where is this Master person that you serve."

"I don't know about you," said Captain Janeway, who was resting with Kes at the base of a nearby tree. "But I like to see the face of the person I'm talking with."

"I agree," said Captain Sisko. He stepped close. "Now you can either remove that helmet of yours yourself, or I can do it for you."

Without responding, Boba Fett raised is hands to his helmet, then suddenly kicked Sisko in the gut, while turning on his rocket thruster. It only flared on briefly, as it was damaged but it did cause everyone to scatter as he was carried over a hundred feet away.

Batman, Martok and Sisko hurried after him, but McCoy just shook his head. "They won't catch him again. He's too good."

"Ambassador Spock!" Ro Laren called out as she quickly pulled out her phaser.

"Wait!" cried out a voice.

It took them a minute to realize that it came from the cyborg form that was now moving.

"Now you want to talk?" Picard said, furiously.

"I – am – Megatron!" said the cyborg.

Spock glanced down at his tricorder to confirm that the computer entity that they had discovered earlier had indeed left his tricorder and was now embodied the robotic shell before them. "Fascinating."

McCoy shook his head. "You know, Spock. You would think that after all these years you would have discovered another descriptive adjective to use by now."

**AUTHOR'S NOTES**

_Sorry it's short. The next part should be longer._

_Okay, you now have a taste of what the Master is dealing with. It's going to get really hairy soon._

_As for the Q Team, Megatron has, more or less, joined the group at least for now, in the body of the Terminator android. What do you think he's going to want to do now that he is on his 'feet' again?_

**Next – Q2's team has some unusual encounters as they finally get to the Borg.**


	17. Chapter 17

**A TANGLED WEB 8:17**

**By Ordinaryguy2**

Enik led the way through the tunnels alongside the large frame of the Alpha Hirogen. Two Sleestak bowmen followed behind him. Two more Sleestak bowmen came at the very end of the group. Those in the middle of the group of travelers going through the tunnels had different origins.

Captain James T. Kirk came from an alternate universe where he had murdered his way up to captaincy of a star ship for the Terran Empire. Dukat, more or less, had a similar history but in a different alternate universe and with the Cardassian Empire. While they didn't trust each other, they were like minded enough to contrive together.

"But what can this kid do to help us?" Kirk asked, in a hushed whisper, looking back at Eric, the teenager wearing the bright medieval armor, who was busy talking with the enigmatic man known as the Professor and the diminutive alien, Rygel as they walked through the tunnels.

Dukat's thoughts darted this way and that. "It may be just as she said; this kid may be the key to keeping the Borg off us as we pick off the drones one by one."

"There's got to be more to it than that!" insisted Kirk. "Romulans always have ulterior motives. I think that's true in every alternate universe." He paused for a moment in thought. "You don't think she went off with the others to rescue Khan, do you?"

Dukat thought about playing with Kirk's ego regarding Khan and Sela but now was not the time to build falsehood. Especially ones that wouldn't yield any potential benefits to him. "No. Sela's got something else in the works. Besides, when would Khan have had time to woo her?"

Behind them came Eric, a dark haired teenager who had spent the last year or so lost with his friends in another dimension where magic and legend were the norm. He was fortunate that he had been given a rare and powerful weapon in the form of a shield that could erect impenetrable force field fueled by his will power.

Beside Eric walked Dominar Rygel XVI, deposed ruler of the Hynerian Empire. As a Hynerian, he was only just over two feet tall and had to walk fast to keep up with the others.

Eric found the Hynerian to be pompous and crass while Rygel found the Earth boy to by arrogant and rude. The reason they kept company, despite their common similarities, was that the Professor wanted to talk to them.

"But I am telling you that these fellows are not our friends!" whispered the Professor, who walked along using his umbrella as a cane.

Eric held up his hand, indicating he had heard enough. "Look! I don't know what's you are trying to do. You say that there are two teams coming to take out the Borg, both trying to win some prize doing it. How are we supposed to determine which team wins? These Borg characters gotta be taken out no matter who's fighting or what there reasons are, right?" He looked down to Rygel for support.

Rygel looked up in confusion. "Hmmm? Oh, I just want to get as far away as we can from those nightmare creatures that attacked us back there." He shivered at the very remembrance of the xenomorphs creeping through the shadows.

Before the Professor could bring them around to his way of thinking, they had noticed Lore up ahead signaling them all to be quiet.

As they gathered together, Lore explained to them that he and the female Changeling had found a battle happening just ahead of them. "There is a large scale battle going on against the Borg. The people appear to be Human but they are displaying a variety of powers."

"We could wait and let both sides wear themselves out before we appear," suggested Dukat.

"Are you nuts?" Eric exclaimed. "From how you described these Borg fellas, it would be better to do something about them sooner than later."

"He's right," nodded Kirk. "Plus, we could win some more allies to our cause."

"The Borg must be stopped in order to save my people," stated Enik.

"We should fight, not argue," added the Alpha Hirogen.

"Very well," said Dukat. "Where is the Changeling?" he asked Lore.

"She is strategically placing herself so that she can string a trap when we attack."

Rygel raised a hand. "Perhaps I should stay back here to guard the tunnel in the event we need to retreat."

"You'll go out with the rest of us!" snapped Kirk, who grabbed the Hynerian. "You'll go if I have to carry you out there under my arm!"

"Ah, but wouldn't that make you more of a target?" pointed out the Professor. "And slow you down?"

Kirk glanced down at Rygel who was trying to squirm away. "Bah! Why did we even bring him along? He doesn't even have a weapon!" He dropped the Hynerian who hit the floor with a thud.

"You lout!" exclaimed an outraged Rygel. "I am an emperor of billions!"

Kirk snorted. "And I've deposed-"

"Enough!" shouted the Alpha Hirogen. "Our fight is out there!"

Kirk stormed away. The Professor gave Eric a knowing look but said nothing. They all left the brooding Hynerian and headed up the tunnel.

The sight that they found consisted of just over a dozen people fighting against about forty drones in a large opening leading to the outside. The ceiling in this part of the cave rose to just over thirty feet which proved good for the people facing the Borg as some of their fighters were also flyers.

A man that appeared to be made out of ice projected an ice barricade to block the drones from his comrades. Meanwhile a black woman with white hair was flying about calling down hail and lightning on the drones while an orange rocky man and a man made out of steel were tossing a barrage of rocks at them as well. A large, agile blue furred man jumped amongst a couple of drones and knocked their heads together, kicked over two others before somersaulting away. Another skinnier blue furred man with a tail teleported in and worked at keeping the drones off balance before teleporting in a whiff of smoke to another area where he started all over again. A flaming man flew through the air tossing fireball at every drone he saw. A muscular man with a short handled hammer threw his weapon at the drones, knocking them to and fro before the hammer returned like a boomerang to the blond man hand.

"Now!" The Alpha Hirogen charged into the conflict. Dukat and Kirk ran to the side where there were some large boulders that they could hide behind as they fired.

Eric moved out after the Alpha Hirogen with the Professor, Lore, Enik and his four bowman behind his mystic shield for cover. Eric was knocked back briefly as he repelled a shot from a drone, but Lore steadied him. "Thanks," he said to the android. As Eric peeked over his shield he saw a man in a tight fitting chain mail colored in red, white and blue. The patriotic man used a red and white circular shield to deflect a drone's tubular while sparring with another drone. Kicked that one aside and then returned to face the other. "Whoa! Guy's got moves!"

"Let's try getting closer to the Alpha Hirogen," suggested the Professor.

The Hirogen hunter was fighting side by side with a short dark-haired Human with metal claws coming out of the knuckles of each hand. Both had been hit by a stun beam but other than staggering for a moment, they mostly continued on due to tenacity, resilience, and in the Hirogen's case, good deflecting armor. A man in red and gold armor crashed next to them briefly before turning and firing a blast at the drones from the palms of his hands.

Erik moved between the drones that the Alpha Hirogen and the shorter man were fighting and erected his shield to keep off phaser fire from other drones that were trying to pick them off from further away.

Enik tossed a couple of crystals at one nearby drone which shocked it. His bowmen were only effective for one shot each from their crossbows before one of them fell to the nano-probes of one of the drones.

"Where is that Changeling?" Kirk scowled.

"There!" pointed out Dukat, at a blue figure stretching to incredible lengths around a couple of drones.

"Somehow I don't think so." As they watched the stretching form was stunned and reverted most of the way back to the shape of a man. Then a section of floor pushed up knocking a dozen arriving drones over. The female Changeling zipped away as more Borg stun beams tried to hit her.

"That's more her style," said Kirk as he fired repeatedly.

Dukat did a double take at one of the figures off to the side. "There's a familiar face."

"Who?"

"Captain Picard." Dukat studied the figure over four hundred feet away. "Something is different about him, though."

"Well, shoot him and we'll figure it out later!"

"One moment." Dukat pulled out his tricorder and did a quick scan. "Hmmm. Same face, but not the same underneath."

"Why'd you waste time doing that for? You could have just shot him."

Dukat frowned. "Because he is part of the group fighting against the Borg. If we want them to join us in our fight against the Borg, then we should refrain from shooting down their people along with the drones. But he's being kept in a unconscious - almost hypnotic - state."

Kirk snorted. "Fine, as long as you're sure that it isn't Picard."

Dukat glanced down at the remarkable readings again. "Definitely."

An invisible force field seemed to keep out newly arriving drones at the front of the cave opening. Near the man that looked like Captain Picard, another man, wearing a green outfit with purple armored leggings while donning a purple helmet with a blue faceplate, stepped forward. "To me, my warriors!"

Eric, who had been trying to get a nice-to-meet-you, thanks, or even a high five from some of those unusual fighters they had just helped at considerable risk to themselves, found that they didn't even acknowledge his existence, but turned to go to the man who had called them. "Hey, what's the deal?"

"Everything is not as it seems, young one," commented Enik, who was at his side. "Be on your guard."

The man with the blue faceplate regarded the Alpha Hirogen and the others. "I am Kang the Conqueror, ruler of an interstellar, interdimensional and inter-temporal empire. And I have come here to add this temporal oddity to my dominion."

"Good grief! He's a time-traveling Caesar or Alexander the Great!" exclaimed Eric. He looked from the Alpha Hirogen to Enik. "Not that either of you would know who they were."

Kang ignored the teenager for now. "You have fought well against these cybernetic beings. I admire remarkable fighters like yourselves, which is why I have conscripted the Fantastic Four, the X-Men and the Avengers to my side. Now I would have you join my services, as well."

The female Changeling had not been idle during this discussion. She observed Mr. Fantastic and a number of the others. "They are in a form of trance," she said.

"We have our own quest; our own obligations," stated the Alpha Hirogen. "We decline your offer."

Kang smiled evilly. "I never said you had a choice." In his hand was a thin collar that was exactly like the collars worn by all of his fighters. Kang motioned to his dazed fighters and they charged forward.

As the Changeling became intertwined with the elastic Mr. Fantastic, the Alpha Hirogen shot the charging Colossus, knocking him back into a large stalagmite that collapsed on top of organic steel man. The Hirogen then grabbed the Thing's swinging fist and used the inertia of the blow to throw him up and into the invisible force field that was still keeping out the Borg. It was the Beast that snuck in and knocked the Hirogen off his feet. Thor came in to hit the Hirogen harder than he could ever remember being struck. He staggered back, barely managing to shoot his phaser into Thor's face, stunning him in turn.

Lore shot at the Angel, Storm and the Human Torch as they swooped in on him from above. Angel was hit early and crumpled to the ground. Storm struck at him with lightning but Eric had intervened at just the right moment and knocked the lightning into Wolverine who was about to pounce with claws extended. Iron Man landed behind the android and Lore began to grapple with him. "They don't want to kill us. But they are willing to come damn close while trying to capture us for their master."

Nightcrawler teleported in and began taking out the Sleestak bowmen. Enik managed to duck in time and use two crystals to make a light burst that blinded Nightcrawler at he teleported near him again. The Wasp flew in close to Enik's face and stung him with her stingers causing him to drop the crystals.

"Oh, dear," said the Professor, shaking his head. "The pudding is all a-boil again. I guess I'll just have to-" Just then, Iceman encased the time-lord's feet in a block of ice. "Hmm. Then again, maybe I won't."

Kang looked over to the Invisible Woman at his side. The strain of keeping out the Borg drones was beginning to show on her. The newcomers were proving to be more of a challenge than he had earlier estimated. But all for the better. Once they were bested and converted into his services, his forces here would be even stronger. Off to his side, Professor X's head slumped to the right. Kang was using the utmost caution with this powerful telepath and kept him asleep. Potentially, Xavier couldn't even use his powers unless Kang allowed him to, but the time-warlord didn't want to chance it unless he had to.

Kirk and Dukat fired at Captain America who was running at them with his shield up. They were having problems aiming accurately due to the fact that the Human Torch was tossing fire balls at them.

Kirk cursed something in Klingon. Ants were crawling all over him. "What the?"

From back where they had come up in the tunnel came a shout. "Have no fear! Rygel is here!"

Flying out of the tunnel, Rygel was sitting at the feet of a young black teenager wearing a purple coat outlined in yellow. They both rode a small metal disk which seemed to fly on it's own.

Static Shock flew through a small cloud of flying ants which exploded on contact with him. "Great, now I'm a bug zapper, too!" He didn't noticed Ant-Man falling to the side of the tunnel unconscious, because he was busy sending a bolt of electricity at the Human Torch. "Take that, match head!"

The struck Torch faltered as he flew.

Behind him, other newcomers came out of the tunnel, ready to fight.

"I'll take on the flaming man, Static" said the yellow and red costumed Electra Woman. "You can travel faster that me." So saying, she adjusted her ElectraCom on her wrist. "Electra-Force Field!" A beam of energy shot out of her wrist and encased the Torch in a energy bubble. "That should hold him for a while."

Static spied Storm from across the opening as she rained down lighting against Eric's mystic shield. "Oh man! I hope she digs younger dudes because, man, I am smitten!" He raced away through the air while Rygel, holding tight to one of his legs, either yelled a Hynerian war cry or a shriek of sheer terror.

Dyna Girl stood next to Electra Woman. "If you are going to hold him, you'll be left vulnerable. You'll have to keep your ElectraCom trained on him."

A woman in a blue dress came up next to her. "They are under the control of Kang, a madman who abuses time to his own whim. Stay here and guard your friend, Dyna Girl. The rest of us will fight our way to Kang."

"You're Electra-right, Sapphire!" said Dyna Girl, as the others passed her. She soon found herself busy trying to zap the Wasp while getting zapped herself.

A man in a grey suit walked next to Sapphire. "Do you think Kang is responsible for all these chronal displacements?"

"Perhaps not, Steel. But he's guilty of numerous other time violations. Bringing him in will be quite a feather in our cap."

Steel frowned. They were not often in corporal form so he did not always understand some of the metaphors that his partner, Sapphire, liked to use. "It least this will look better on our record than taking away the time machine of those two California delinquents."

Sapphire shook her head. "First off, Bill and Ted had merely taken Jules Verne and Phileas Fogg on a tour of time. Time Travelers are all over the place. The only problem was when they took them to the future to see all the books Jules had written. But the problem was diverted with a quick mind swipe. Besides, you seemed to enjoy the music of Wyld Stallyns."

Steel seemed a little embarrassed. "They're later works were very enjoyable. Can't say much for their early works."

Their discussion ended quickly as Steel rushed forward to grapple with Colossus. Colossus was stronger, but Steel was no slouch. Plus, Colossus was dazed which was affecting his fighting.

Dukat and Kirk hurried up to Sapphire, more than a little amazed at what was going on.

"Okay, everyone. Try to clear a path for me to the loud man with the blue faceplate." Then she started fast walking toward Kang as if she was strolling down a busy street or mall.

A blond haired girl named Tia Malone nodded. "I think I can handle the orange one," she said as the Thing came charging toward them. Tia tilted her head and concentrated. Abruptly, Ben Grimm, otherwise known as the Thing was telekinetically thrust through the air to the far wall where he slid down to the floor only to get up again. "I can keep this up for a while," Tia said. "But I think I'll probably tire out before he will."

Sinbad knocked aside the soaring shield of Captain America with his sword before it could hit Tia. "It would be a great injustice to strike down a young girl. Perhaps you should try something more your size. Myself perhaps?"

Captain America said nothing as he launched himself at the young Rogue.

A tall athletic man turned to Sapphire. "I'll be over there," he said, pointing toward where Thor was holding down the Alpha Hirogen as the Beast was struggling to get close enough to put on one of Kang's controlling collars. Moving at hyperspeed, Cole, a Cirronian in Human guise, shoved the Beast and Thor off of the Alpha Hirogen, but it was too late, as the collar was already on the Hirogen's neck.

"This could be a problem," Cole said, and then jumped back as the Alpha Hirogen reached for him.

"Some help then?" said a feminine voice.

Cole turned to see Maya there. "That would be appreciated," he said to the Psychon. As he watched, her shape contorted into something hairy, muscular and very tall.

"Where did you all come from?" Dukat asked as he hurried next to Sapphire.

"From many places. Many timelines."

Dukat scowled. Normally he loved cryptic answers, especially when he was the one giving them. "But we had just come from that tunnel. And why are you willing to fight up here?"

"There are many tunnels, sir. As for why we are here, can it not wait until after we have won the day?"

Dukat fell back as Sapphire continued on. "I hate waiting," he mumbled. He fired at Iron Man and Wolverine in his frustration.

Nightcrawler bamped over Sapphire. He was still in the midst of falling onto her when another pair of hands grabbed him and pulled him back.

"Ah, a demon! He's mine!" Barnabas Collins bared his vampire fangs as he pulled Kurt Wagner close. Nightcrawler teleported away and behind Collins, kicking him in the head. The vampire snarled and lunged at the mutant's tail, but he teleported away again. Collins swung with his cane but merely grazed the quick mutant.

"Wrong way," said River Tam, a shy girl who had been mumbling to herself as she followed behind Sapphire.

Collins ignored her in his growing fury with the blue teleporter. As Nightcrawler appeared to his right, Collins swung his cane, but the teleporter anticipated that and vanished again, leaving the vampire to mutter obscure eighteenth century curses under his breath.

"Show him the right way, River," Sapphire said over her shoulder as she kept walking toward Kang.

The thin seventeen year old girl stood there staring straight ahead while Collins was knocked to the floor yet again by the unique feet of Nightcrawler. With a twist of her body and a kick, her foot reached the spot where Nightcrawler's head appeared just in time to be struck.

The dark blue mutant fell hard and unconscious to the rocky floor.

"I said he was mine!" shouted Collins in outrage. "I was to defeat the demon!"

River knelt down by Kurt's head and began unfastening the metal collar around his neck. "The demons you want haunt your mind, vampire. As you look Human on the outside so is this one on the inside. By appearance he has been deemed demon and monster by many. But in truth he is only guilty of birth, to be born." She tilted mutant's head to the side and a trickle of blood oozed down his cheek.

"He bleeds," the vampire said, hungrily. "Then perhaps this annoying creature can slack my thirst as well."

River pulled out a small necklace that had been tucked into Nightcrawler's shirt. "But you can't eat him now. He's not in season."

"You must be touched in the head, girl," he said as he drew closer. But then he turned a wary eye to the lithe girl. "What do you mean 'season'?"

"It's Lent." A small silver metal cross was at the end of the necklace and she neatly placed the emblem directly on his chest.

Barnabas stepped away, repelled by the symbol of atonement. "Damn you, girl!" Then he turned and melted into the darkness.

Barnabas moved past Kai, who had proclaimed himself an undead Divine Assassin. Barnabas found the very Human looking animated dead alien to be devoid of emotion, yet comical with his towering black beehive hairdo. But there was nothing comical about the weapon Kai used. The brace was a bladed device on a line that emerged from his wrist that propelled out and could be contracted on whim. Currently, Kai was using it to chip away at Iceman's defenses by repeatedly extending and contracting it in rapid succession.

Meanwhile, Iron Man had taken offense at the phaser fire from Dukat and was flying closer to return the favor.

"I can take the flying robot man!" said Jake Foley excitedly to Sapphire, who was still walking away. "I've got a way with machines." He was a nerdy looking guy, but taller, better looking and better hair than most nerdy guys. Jake stood a few feet away from Dukat, which turned out to be a good thing as one of Iron Man's repulsor beams struck the ground right in front of the Cardassian knocking him back off his feet.

Jake concentrated, focusing his thoughts through the tiny nanobots circulating in his body, using them as a means to connect with the controls within the Iron Man armor.

Iron Man landed a few feet from him and was preparing to shoot Gul Dukat where he lay when his suit seized up and powered down.

Jake exhaled a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Man, that couldn't get much closer." He glanced at the armored figure once more before going over to the Cardassian. Dukat was struggling to sit up while reaching around for his phaser. "Here," Jake said, offering Dukat a hand up. Jake was thrilled to actually meet another alien, as the last twenty-four hours had been like a geek-fest for him.

As Dukat took Jake's hand, it started to tremble. "Are you all right, Human?"

Jake looked in puzzlement at his hand. "Must be all the excitment." But then his other hand and his left leg started to shake. "Hey! What's going on here?" The panic was clear in his voice.

"Something is controlling you?" Dukat asked.

"Something…m-m-must…b-b-b-be!" His body was racked in tremors. At first he turned to Iron Man, thinking that he must be the source of his problem. But the source was further than that. "T-t-t-there-re." He managed to point at the line of Borg drones still being held on the other side of Invisible Woman's force field. Some of them were pointing their cybernetic prosthetic limb towards him.

Dukat stepped away from Jake. "The Borg must be trying to control you the same way you controlled that armored man. Can you turn you power off?"

"N-n-n-no!"

"Try!"

The Iron Man armor started powering up again, and Dukat realized he had little choice. Setting his phaser to stun, he turned it on Jake who fell unconscious to the floor. Iron Man's armored form still did not move so Dukat figured he must have acted in time.

The Cardassian glanced around to assess how things were going. The telekinetic girl, Tia, still had the Thing bouncing off the walls, but just barely. Electra Woman still had the Human Torch contained. Captain America had just defeated Sinbad and was retrieving his shield when Captain Kirk jumped him from behind only to be tossed over his body. They stood to face each other. Dyna Girl, who had finally managed to stun the Wasp, managed to zap Captain America with enough electricity to knock him out. A grateful Kirk pulled her in for a passionate kiss as well as copping a quick feel. She responded with a quick knee to his groin and shoved him away.

Looking elsewhere, Dukat saw Wolverine, who had been pierced by Kai's brace, had tried gutting the last of the Brunnen G, but Kai didn't feel any pain and his wound simply closed up. Iceman lay unconscious on the floor next to Storm. Static Shock was trying his luck against Thor and immediately didn't like his chances but was trying anyway. Off to the side Eric used his shield to protect himself, Rygel and Enik from some of the excess lightning produced by Thor and Static Shock.

Steel and Colossus were still going at it in the middle of the room as if it were a gladiatorial arena. Nearby, the Beast was tearing into another furry monstrosity that had to the female metamorph, Maya. Rolling around amongst all of this was a large grayish blue ball that consisted of Mr. Fantastic and the female Changeling. Lore was off to one side and seemed to be trying to recalibrate himself after Iron Man had melted off half his face.

Confident that they could hold out a little longer, he hurried after Sapphire just in time to see the vampire, Barnabas Collins, trying to take on the now Kang-controlled Alpha Hirogen. Seeing that display of fighting made him more determined than ever to end this soon. He strode past River who was removing the control collars from Iceman and Storm. He could see Kang staring at the approaching Sapphire. The self proclaimed conqueror of time seemed to be fighting on another level with Sapphire that was totally undiscernibly to the Cardassian, but he didn't care about that. He found a good place to shoot from and began firing on Kang.

Kang was starting to get frustrated by how long everything was taking. He was angered even more by the volley of shots that almost hit him. He ducked away and returned fire. Yelling, he called out to two of the mutants he had kept in reserve. "Rogue! Shadowcat! Get out there and stop them!" He began firing at Sapphire who had to run back to some boulders for cover.

Shadowcat took off running toward Dukat. The Cardassian tried stunning her but the beams of light just went through her. Not seeing what he could do and not wanting to find out what she could do to him, he turned to run. Glancing back, he saw the super fast Cole tackling the immaterial girl and removing her collar.

Rogue, able to absorb other people's powers and memories, walked over to the downed Angel. She removed her glove and touched the face of the unconscious mutant, after a few seconds wings broke through the back of her shirt and jacket.

The Professor, still cooling his heels in a block of ice, regarded this phenomenon in amazement. "Ah, now that is an interesting ability. She assumes on the characteristics of others. I wonder just how much she actually takes on?"

As she started to fly over him, he used his umbrella to hook her foot with the handle. Unbalanced, she jerked back and forth while he pulled her down just far enough to grab hold of her ankle. As she strained her new wings to fly out of his grasp, he pulled off one of her boots and grabbed on tight to her bare foot with his hand.

She stopped struggling and came to rest next to him. Before he passed out, the Professor pulled off the collar around her neck.

Rogue turned, and took wing again, but this time she headed back toward Kang. Kang was pulled up into the air before he knew what was going on. "Rogue! Stop this immediately!"

Rogue shook her head. "You do not comprehend the forces with which you play! Time is not a plaything!"

Seeing himself defeated, Kang adjusted a dial on his belt and he was no longer there.

Rogue shook her head. "Typical. Raises all sorts of havoc but won't stay around to face the consequences. Looks like he unhinged himself from time to get away. Very reckless, but typical of his sort."

With Kang gone, all of the heroes that still had the collars on fell over in a faint. Including the Invisible Woman, who had been holding the Borg at bay.

"Uh oh!"

**AUTHOR'S NOTES**

_Kang's actions here are not out of character. He has often used others to obtain items and conquer for him. The domination over others seems almost as important to him as winning. Plus, after taking over world after world, it makes it more of a game for him._

_I had wanted to bring in the X-Men for a while for a number of reasons. I chose the movie versions because of Patrick Stewart having played both Jean-Luc Picard and Professor X. I included Iron Man, Ant-Man, Captain America, Wasp and Thor because not only do they consist of some of the most well-known Avengers, who were usually Kang's biggest foes, but they all have movies coming out this year and next year._

_In the comic books, when heroes met heroes there was almost always the misunderstanding that causes them to have a slug-fest. It looked like it would be fun to add and I sure enjoyed it. Hope all you readers did as well._

_As for Sapphire and Steel, they are from England and are actual agents of time that have that have manifested physical form to fix problems in time. Because of the abrupt arrival of the Borg causing havoc with the machinery that runs the Land of the Lost, they are drawn here as well. And they gathered a team of useful misfits along the way._

_Hope you liked it because I have an even bigger fight coming up._

**MARVEL COMICS**

Kang the Conqueror

**FANTASTIC FOUR (2005)**

Human Torch / Johnny Storm – (Chris Evans)

Thing / Ben Grimm – (Michael Chiklis)

Invisible Woman / Sue Storm – (Jessica Alba)

Mr. Fantastic / Reed Richards – (Ioan Gruffudd)

**X-MEN: THE LAST STAND – (2006)**

Wolverine / Logan – (Hugh Jackman)  
Storm / Ororo Munroe – (Halle Berry)  
Professor X / Professor Charles Xavier – (Patrick Stewart)  
Rogue / Marie – (Anna Paquin)  
Beast / Dr. Henry 'Hank' McCoy – (Kelsey Grammer)  
Iceman / Bobby Drake – (Shawn Ashmore)  
Shadowcat / Kitty Pryde – (Ellen Page)

Colossus / Peter Rasputin – (Daniel Cudmore)  
Angel / Warren Worthington III – (Ben Foster)

Nightcrawler / Kurt Wagner – (Alan Cumming)

**IRON MAN (2008)**

Iron Man / Tony Stark – (Robert Downey Jr.)

**ANT-MAN (2008)**

Ant-Man / Henry Pym – (?)

Wasp / Janet van Dyne – (?)

**CAPTAIN AMERICA (2009)**

Captain America / Steve Rogers – (?)

**THOR (2009)**

Thor / Donald Blake – (?)

**TRACKER (2001 – 2002)**

Cole / Daggon – (Adrian Paul)

**ESCAPE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN (1975)**

Tia Malone – (Kim Richards)

**FIREFLY (2002 – 2004)**

River Tam – (Summer Glau)

**JAKE 2.0 (2003 – 2004)**

Jake Foley – (Christopher Gorham)

**LEXX (1997 – 2002)**

Kai – (Michael McManus)

**THE ADVENTURES OF SINBAD (1996 – 1998)**

Sinbad – (Zen Gesner)

**SAPPHIRE & STEEL (1979 – 1982)**

Sapphire – (Joanna Lumley)

Steel – (David McCallum)

**DARK SHADOWS (1966 – 1971)**

Barnabas Collins – (Jonathan Frid)

**SPACE: 1999 (1975 – 1977)**

Maya – (Catherine Schell)

**ELECTRA WOMAN AND DYNA GIRL (1976)**

Electra Woman – (Deidre Hall)

Dyna Girl – (Judy Strangis)

**STATIC SHOCK (2000 – 2004)**

Static Shock – (Phil LaMarr)

**THE SECRET ADVENTURES OF JULES VERNE (2000)**

Jules Verne – (Chris Demetral) (mentioned only)

Phileas Fogg – (Michael Praed) (mentioned only)

**BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE (1989)**

Ted Logan – (Keanu Reeves) (mentioned only)

Bill S. Preston, Esq. – (Alex Winter) (mentioned only)


	18. Chapter 18

**A Tangled Web 8.18**

**ACT 1 – **

Bobby patted Uni reassuringly on her side, but she still shivered nervously. "It's ok, Uni. The big, bad monsters are gone."

Hadji, who had been administering a salve to some of the acid burns on Bobby's skin, leaned back. "Perhaps she does not like the scent of my medicine."

Jim Taggart sat a few feet away sketching Uni in detail on a small pad of paper. "Animal senses are keener than ours. If she senses danger somewhere nearby, then there most likely is danger nearby."

Bobby looked up at the ridge where Uni kept staring. "But there's nothing up there."

Jim shook his head. "Animals use more than just their eyes to know when dangerous threats are near." He considered the ridge where Uni was looking. "But I don't think it's anything we need to be worried about. Most animals don't like to attack Humans, especially when they are in large groups and have a bonfire." He pointed to the large fire that was part of the T-Rex called Grumpy's funeral pyre.

It wasn't a true funeral as is was a need burn the meat of the large dinosaur since it had been tainted during its devastating fight with the large xenomorph queen. Jack Marshall and Jim Taggart agreed that if the poisonous meat was poisonous, it could kill a large portion of this land's population that would come to consume Grumpy's remains.

Taggart had helped collect wood for the fire, but now it was being tended by Hurley, John Smith and Will Marshall. He watched as they added more wood to an area that wasn't burning as well.

Hadji ground more roots into pulp between to rocks before mixing it with the rest of his ingredients. "Some predators are attracted by the smell of roasting meat. The smell has been known to overwhelm a hungry animal's sense of caution."

Taggart nodded. "Yeah, but if they attack, then I think it is safe to say that some of our friends can chase them off."

Bobby winced as Hadji applied more salve. "Boy, that burns for the first second or two. What's that stuff made from?" His nose twitches from the strong odor. Uni mewled in disgust and rubbed one of her front hooves against her nose.

Hadji laughed at them. "I have a Western friend back home, and from my experiences with him I will say that it is better that you do not know, my friend."

Taggart bit his pen in thought. "Say…uh, it's Bobby, right?"

Bobby nodded, but winced as Hadji put on more of the salve.

Taggart continued. "Your unicorn pal, Uni. Does she have any…special abilities?"

The young barbarian tilted his head as he scratched his head. "You mean does she have any powers?"

"Sure," he said, with a little embarrassment. He'd been trying to coax the little filly to him for a while but she wouldn't go near him. Yet she had no problem being around Bobby or Hadji.

"Well, the older unicorns can stop some magic, some healing and teleport."

Taggart's eyes widened. "And you've seen this done?"

"Sure, with the adult unicorns. Though Uni can teleport small distances but she doesn't have very good control yet."

Taggart wrote everything into his note book next to the pictures he had drawn of Uni. He looked up at Bobby with just a little apprehension. "Can she, er, do anything else? Like,uh, detecting things?"

"What do you mean?"

Taggart began to blush. Haji's eyes widened in surprise just before he burst into laughter.

"What's so funny?" Bobby demanded.

Hadji, after a few deep breaths to stop from laughing, whispered an answer into Bobby's ear.

"What?" exclaimed the child barbarian. "What does a person's virgi-" He looked around to see if his yelling was drawing any attention. Sheila, his sister, glanced up sleepily from where she had been resting next to Hank underneath one of the large trees with a number of other people who needed rest after getting out of the monster's next. Bobby lowered his voice and his sister went back to sleep. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"It's one of the myths surrounding unicorns," Taggart admitted. Seeing that the boy was defensive now he decided to leave the two boys to talk amongst themselves.

Plopping down under another tree away from the others, he decided to look through his treasures. From his pockets he pulled out a couple of small, clear plastic bags that were sealed. He was glad that he always carried a supply of these around since accidentally arriving here had turned out to be a bonanza for him.

With a black marker he made sure to label each bag individually. The first one had four strands of the young unicorn's hair that he had taken from a small tree that he had seen her scratching up against. Next he had scale, muscle and blood samples from the dead Tyrranosaur. He had a small piece of the xenomorph queen's exoskeleton which seemed to be safe since it didn't have any blood with it.

He had also been able to get a little of the cocoon resin off of the monochrome female alien, Chiana, along with a few strands of her hair and a skin scrapping as well.

He had managed to get a few hairs from the intelligent talking dog, Mr. Peabody, but ever since Jim had mentioned that he was an animal containment specialist, Mr. Peabody seemed to be avoiding him.

Getting hair, blood and tissue samples from the barbarian Conan had been simply since he had the handkerchief that he had used to clean Conan's wounds sealed in one of the plastic bags.

On another plastic bag was a piece of cloth from the Romulan female's uniform along with a small trace of green blood. He had been very fortunate when he noticed her tossing it away.

He had helped Buzz Lightyear take off parts of his damaged armored space suit. He was able to get a skin and blood sample from Lightyear, plus a small piece of metal from his flight suit that Taggart hoped was an unusual alloy or unknown metal.

He smiled to himself. "The scientists in Eureka will flip over all these DNA samples I'm bringing them to clone. It's better than having a camera."

There were more people he could collect samples from but he didn't want to be too obvious in what he was doing. Tucking his samples away, he went to collect more firewood, figuring he could collect some prehistoric botany and insect samples.

Other people were not quite as happy as Taggart. Sela had finished explaining why she was the only one of their team to come and rescue him.

"They just left me to be an incubator for that monstrosity's baby?"

Sela eyed Khan appraisingly. He was indeed a superior specimen of Human. "Need I remind you that the more time the Borg are given, the harder it will become to take them down. You have not yet encountered the Borg. You do not understand the devastation they can inflict."

"Nor do you have any idea what kind of devastation I can inflict!" He was seething, and Sela thought now might be the time to soothe him. "Do not forget that it was I that came to rescue you."

"Do not worry, Romulan. I pay my debts."

_Good_, she thought, _now maybe I can learn the secrets to how you were genetically improved_. She thought of what her physically and mentally superior children could accomplish for the Romulan Empire. They could even rule it, given time. And rule over all the Klingon and Federation territories as well. _I'm getting ahead of myself_, she thought.

"Now those that had come with me to rescue you and the others have agreed to come and fight for us against the Borg. But, Peabody, the talking, upright white dog over there has already gathered this other group that came to our rescue. They still have a rescue mission to do. Peabody's willing to fight the Borg after they do their rescue, but not before."

Khan sat down again, as his nausea returned. He sipped some cool water that someone had brought from a stream. He and all of the others that had been with alien-embryo had felt sick to their stomachs. Sela's tricorder indicating that it was just their bodies readjusting to their organs sliding back into the right places because of the displaced embryos.

Nearby, many of the previous alien hosts were sleeping as their bodies recovered from the affects of the intrusions. The small unicorn and Khan were the quickest to recover, while Chiana, Holly and Sheila seemed to suffer the worst of it.

While they recovered, the others were taking a well deserved break. Up in a nearby fruit tree, Alex Mack and Will Marshall were exchanging looks that only twitterpated teenagers could.

"I can smell the pheromones from here." Khan chuckled.

"Well, the poor boy has been trapped here for years with the only female around being his sister. Can you blame him for falling for one of the first young ladies he finds?"

Khan's look fell. "Life goes on. Even if the one you love turns to dust."

"You're wrong, Khan." Sela bent down and picked up one of the nuts that had been gathered. She crushed it in her fist, and then picked out the shell pieces. "Life strives to go on. Sometimes you have to strive to go on with it."

Khan examined her. "You have changed. It's that girl Holly's influence on you."

She almost choked on the nut she was eating.

Khan laughed. "You Romulans consider everything to be a weakness; even those things that other races deem to be a strength, like a maternal instinct."

Cold eyes regarded him now that did not look Human at all. "Your death could last for years. I know masters in the art of torture that-"

"Stifle your threats, Romulan! I was not belittling you but remarking on an improvement in your personality. If you find that an insult then let us cease formalities and focus on our mission."

A yell from the other side of camp drew their attention however it was only Conan and Jack Sparrow shouting a toast to each other as they sampled each others rum and wine.

Sela sighed. "I…apologize. I am not used to…discussing such matters openly."

Khan nodded. "Of course not. Other Romulans would see it as a sign of weakness and try to exploit it."

"Yes. That is true."

He looked at her appraisingly. A strong formidable female. Warrior bred. Perhaps they could be co-habitat. Maybe raise a clan of warriors. Yes, many things were possible.

**ACT - 2**

The leader of the Yautja hunting group reached over to scratch at the itching sensation in his other arm. He froze when he remembered his arm was no longer attached. Beside him, cloaked, was his life long friend and hunting companion. Together they looked out at the scene below them.

A large fire had been built around the corpse of the large Tyrannosaur, which sent up a large amount of black and white smoke. A few people were feeding the fire, but only half-heartedly.

The Yautja had tracked down their missing comrade when he did not return or respond to hails. His dead carcass lay next to that of his robot prey, the bounty hunter droid IG-88. The hunter had obviously terminated the robot, but something else had killed him in turn, as well as taking most of their weapons.

The Yautja leader had made the hard decision to not seek the killer for vendetta unless he crossed their path. Instead they gathered up the body to return to their ship along with the young hunter that had been wounded by the prey that he himself had fought and had to let go over the waterfall. Then they resumed their task of finding the xenomorphs that had escaped from their ship. But after finding the xenomorph lair, they were surprised to learn that they were too late since someone else had already been there. And only now did they stand a couple of stories above the strange and various fighters that had killed them all, including the queen.

"Why do we wait?" complained the rouge hunter. "Our prey is before us. Let us kill and make trophies of them!"

The leader snorted in disgust. "Where is the honor in that? Look at them down there! They are so exhausted from their recent battles that they can barely stand."

The rouge Yautja clenched and unclenched his mandibles in outrage beneath his mask. He knew that behind him three of the young hunters wanted the kills as badly as he did, but that they would agree with their leader about the current condition of the prey.

"We can hunt elsewhere," suggest the elder of the group. "They in a solar cycle or two we can come back and hunt this prey when they are strong."

The leader simply stared down at the group below them. Two of those down there he knew from the attack where he lost his arm. He had been using his equipment to separate their conversation with each other from the other noise around them. He couldn't understand everything, but the female was trying to convey her reasoning for separating from their comrades so she could help rescue him. The male did not seem to believe her reasoning but was grateful. Neither knew where the artificial man was currently.

The rouge stomped his foot, a sign of disrespect to the leader. "And where do we hunt while we wait for this prey to become strong again?" He held up the head of the bounty hunter that was in a small net-like sack tied to his belt. "Should I just sit and polish the skulls I've already collected all over again?"

"This land is plentiful with game," snapped back the eldest hunter. "Game that is challenging and can fight back."

The rouge stomped his foot again and the leader turned to him in annoyance. Being a leader he had to know when to command and how to back it up. "We will go hunting. In a solar cycle or two we will come back to collect trophies." He stomped his Combi Stick down, daring the rouge to challenge him.

In the distance an explosion occurred, drawing everyone's attention, including the weary people down below.

"I thing we have just found what we are looking for," said the leader. He didn't know how, but he was sure he would find the automaton that took off his arm near that explosion.

**ACT 3 – **

Their group was not close enough to feel the force of the explosion but the surprise of it caused a few to either jump for cover or fall due to surprise as well as the fact that the section of ground they had been transversing was covered in above ground roots.

Captain Kathryn Janeway struggled to regain her feet but she was also trying to help Kes, who had banged her knees on some of the hard roots.

"I think I had actually forgotten how much something like that can hurt," said the Ocampa female with tears in her eyes.

"An-ting oken?" asked the Voyager captain. Her fractured jaw bone was keeping her from speaking clearly, and an additional hindrance was due to the swelling from all the splinters that had peppered her face during their fire fight with the bounty hunters. She was very glad that McCoy had been able to keep the swelling reduced as well as most of the pain. For the most part the wounds looked like a cross between a series of harsh blisters to pimples on steroids. But she considered herself lucky because it could have been much worse and it was all correctible.

Kes looked up at her. "Broken? No. It'll probably bruise though."

A dark figure landed next to them. It was the man who called himself Batman. "You two ok?" He reached down to help Kes first and then Janeway. She knew that his costume somehow augmented his strength and agility but she couldn't see how since it appeared to be skin tight.

He turned to help her up and Kathryn quickly turned her head. She accepted his hand and he helped her up. "Wha wa at?" she asked, hoping that she wasn't blushing.

He looked puzzled for a second. "The explosion? I'm not sure. I figure I'll go scout ahead and see. But first let's get you two over with Captain Picard. He seems to have the best shielded area.

Captain Picard was just ahead near a cluster of tall trees that shielded him from most sides. Adm. McCoy and Spock were also heading toward Picard's location.

Kes leaned on Batman, still a little light headed. "I think I – I sense the Borg up that way." She pointed toward the direction that the explosion occurred.

Batman looked around. "Where are General Martak, Sisko and Ro?"

McCoy scowled. "It's that Megatron. Now that he's got a body to use he's being bossy. He insisted on checking out the explosion. The others went with him to make sure he didn't wander off."

Batman turned to Kes. "How far off would you say the Borg are?"

Kes sat down with help from Janeway, who sat next to her. It was because Janeway and Kes were moving so slow that their group had become so spread out. And they still had to worry about Boba Fett, too. They hadn't seen him in a while, but they knew he was still out there waiting for them. "Maybe a mile," she said. "But I think a little less than that."

Batman grimaced. He couldn't leave to check on them because that would leave them vulnerable to Boba Fett. But the other group could be walking right into this Borg threat. "Is there any way to communicate with them?"

Picard nodded. "We do have communicators. But the Borg would most likely detect any transmission we make."

McCoy did a cursory scan on Janeway and Kes. "You two will be fine." He turned to Picard. "What if the Borg already know we are here?"

"It's possible," Picard admitted with a grimace. "But knowing we are somewhere in this place and knowing exactly where we are is two different matters altogether."

Batman eyed him. The captain wasn't saying something. "Is there something else?"

Picard stared off into the distance. "I was one of them once." His mouth felt dry. "They made me into a drone. And…they took things from me. Information. Memories. My humanity. I did things for them. Things against my crew and my ship. I helped to fight against other ships, other captains that I knew. Killing many of them. Sisko's wife was one of the many that died."

"That was not your choice," said Spock. "Your action were not your own."

Jean-Luc shook himself. He felt foolish and felt vulnerable talking about how he felt. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I said that."

Kes put a hand on his shoulder. "You did it because you care, and you are scared that if the Borg capture you again that you may repeat what you went through before."

"Tim to le e go," Janeway said.

"How can I let it go?" Picard said in exasperation.

"We all regret something," said McCoy. "But most of us have learned to deal with it and move on."

"Your right of course," said Picard. "But sometimes it returns. Like whenever we rendezvous with another Starfleet ship, I have to wonder how many of their crew died trying to fight against the Borg while they were being guided by my experience and knowledge."

Batman shook his head. "Sorry to interrupt the group therapy session, but remember the explosion! And Martok and the others are way ahead of us while Mr. Erector set." They gave him a strange look. "Megatron! The digital guy who downloaded himself into that killer robot. I for one do not trust him."

"Megatron has not done anything to raise our suspicions," commented Spock.

"Bull!" McCoy pointed to Batman. "I don't trust Megatron either. You go on ahead. Make sure they are safe and then keep them from going any further until we get there. We will hurry after you."

Before anyone could argue, Batman took off.

Spock raised an eyebrow. "I-"

"Save it!" said McCoy. "I need you scanning for that armored sniper. He's sure to come after us again. I'll take point. Janeway and Kes will be in the middle. Picard, you are our best shot. You'll take rear and if you get a clear shot on that sniper, take it. Shoot to kill. We already know he will."

They took off in single file. No one spoke. Somewhere in the distance, Boba Fett smiled beneath his helmet.

**ACT 4 – **

Max Guevera was not happy. First she had been transported to another place that seemed to be a prehistoric setting except people and things from different times and alternate realities seemed to get dumped along with her. She ran into a group of unusual characters, got involved in a fight and helped did out an antique RV that contained some intriguing history about this place. Then she and her new friends met the Other who was a boy who claimed to have made this strange place. When the Other continued on his journey to stop the intruders that had upset the balance in his project, Max and her friends decided to come along.

They had been hiking for a while with no sign of slowing when the Cat had begun arguing theology with Alf. This caused the mechanoid, Kryten, to try explaining the concept of Silicone Heaven to the bubble headed robot. The boy, Will Robinson, began explaining the reasons for his belief in the intelligent design theory but John Drake, the man formally known to them as Number Six, argued that the very actions of mankind made him an atheist. Rimmer and Dr. Smith agreed with Drake, but their arguments had no intelligent bearing.

It was almost a relief to her when the explosion occurred up ahead. The blast was not enough to knock her off her feet but she still found herself on the ground with Lister on top of her. "Get off."

"But there could be shrapnel," he argued.

"Trust me. It's more dangerous for you to be on top of me," she growled.

With a not-so-innocent smile, he jumped up and dusted himself off. She sprang to her feet, and then climbed up a large tree faster than any normal Human could. She settled on a branch and was about to move away a few leaves so that she could see where the explosion originated, she discovered that someone had followed her.

"Hiya toots!" The Cat was parked on a neighboring branch just a few feet away and was licking at his lapels in a manner that was supposed to convey his disinterest in everything around him, including her. "Come here often?"

"Cat, if you don't go away, I'm going to have to kick you out of this tree in a manner in which you will not be able to land on your feet."

Cat put on his winning grin. "It must be hard playing hard to get when I am so hot and irresistible."

She rolled her eyes. "You're sure something." She pushed aside the leaves. Her breath left her as she looked out at pure bedlam.

A voice called to her from below. She glanced down to see Will Robinson and Cha-Ka waving their arms and calling to her.

"What?"

"It's the Other!" shouted Will. "He didn't even stop! He's still going!"

"He's like the Energizer bunny on those commercials," commented Alf. "Nothing can stop him."

_Maybe nothing can stop him_, thought Max. But he still looked like a vulnerable young boy, and Max couldn't let him go down into that war zone with out her. She leapt out of the tree, startling Cat who jumped down after her. They hurried after the others and Max couldn't help wondering if they were rushing to their doom.

**AUTHOR'S NOTES**

_Let's see. Mr. Peabody's troop has their own mission so we most likely will not see them again. As for Taggart and his DNA samples, well, let's just say the little town of Eureka had better be careful or else._

_As for Sela and Khan, it's an idea that I've been tossing around._

_As for the explosion, it has occurred near the Master and the Borg fighting area. Everybody is heading that way and it's going to be a great brawl._

_Oh, and yes, the TARDIS will be showing up in the next chapter along with the long awaited fighting force that the Doctors have been putting together._


	19. Chapter 19

**A TANGLED WEB Part 8:19 **

**ACT 1 – **

"Hurry and get off all of those slaving collars!" instructed Sapphire as she worked to free the collar from around the throat of the unconscious Professor X and then the Invisible Woman. She turned to the young woman with the large white streak in her hair. "Who are you?" asked Sapphire.

Rogue stood before her concentrating on the invisible barrier that she created with the powers she temporarily absorbed from the Invisible Woman. "I have been known as that on occasion but for now the persona that is in control of this miraculous body is called the Professor," said Rogue, with a smile. "This body is that of a mutant with the amazing ability to take on, temporarily, the abilities and minds of those she came into physical contact with while leaving the persons she has touched briefly unconscious. Usually she is the one in control unless the one she touches has a much more powerful persona than her own, such as myself." The Professor/Rogue nodded to a strangely dressed man with his feet frozen in a block of ice. "That's my actual body over there."

"How soon until you…that is – she – reverts to herself?"

Rogue considered this for a moment. The wings that she had copied from the Angel were already shrinking into her back. "Fairly soon I'd say."

Sapphire considered the Borg in the other side of the invisible barrier. "We will have to do something soon. Our fighting forces are weakening and many are injured. We'll also have the handicap of trying to protect the wounded."

"Unless I do this," said Rogue. "Drastic measures in drastic times and all that." She/he concentrated on focusing on all the drones on the outside of the invisible barrier. Using the Invisible Woman's powers and the mind and will power of the Professor, they were able to form an invisible hand on every exposed tube and mechanical component on all of the drones he/she could see, and then suddenly pulled them off all at the same time.

"Oh my!" exclaimed Sapphire.

"Yes," agreed Rogue. "Very macabre. Unfortunately they won't be open to that line of attack again."

"What do you mean?"

Rogue rubbed her head softly. "What do I mean? Sorry, most of the thoughts are fading away."

Sapphire looked out at the field just outside the cave and all the dead or dying Borg drones. "What a waste." Still, they had no way currently to undo what the Borg had done to them.

From the far side of the cave, Tia telekinetically carried the still form of the Thing while next to her Electra Woman carried the stunned Human Torch by using her ElectraCom on her wrist to Electra-Degravitate him. With them came Dyna Girl, who carried the prone forms of Ant-Man and the Wasp in either hand.

"Hey, Static," said Dyna Girl. "Why do you look so shocked?"

For his answer he just pointed outside the cave opening where a large number of drones were convulsing horribly as they died.

"Static!" Cole tackled Static to the ground as more Borg drones stepped into view and began firing.

Tia telekinetically knocked one of the first drones back into one of his neighbors and then back into the cave wall. But before Tia could use her powers again, someone hit her in the head with a rock.

Jake Foley stood there with a rock in his hand.

Cole shouted. "He's still under their control!"

Electra Woman dropped the Human Torch and turned her ElectraCom towards Jake. "Electra-Force Field!"

An electric field surrounded Jake. He examined it with cold listless eyes before turning toward where Iron Man stood still as a statue. The Iron Man armor powered up and was on the attack again.

People scattered as Iron Man began firing his repulsor weaponry at them. Electra Woman had to allow Jake Foley to escape as she ducked for cover. One of the Sleestak's that had been injected by Borg nanites wrestled with Gul Dukat off on the side.

Six drones marched in past their dying comrades. One bent down to inoculate nanites into the prone form of Wolverine, but it proved to be a fatal error as the feral mutant suddenly lashed out with his Adamantium claws removing the drone's forearm.

Two of the drones turned to address the new threat of Wolverine. The wounded drone stepped back and aimed it's prosthetic arm at it's attacker.

Logan leaped forward, grabbing the drone's mechanical limb and shoving it toward the other drones. When it's weapon discharged, it was repelled off the other drones protective shields. "So much for letting them kill each other," snarled Wolverine. He rolled onto his back, pulling the wounded drone on top of him, and then using his legs, Logan hurled the drone at the other two drones. This time they were at least knocked down.

Lore leapt on the fallen drones and began to tear them apart. The skin that remained on his android face depicted intense rage and anger. Even Wolverine took a step back. "I wonder if that's what I look like when I get really ticked off."

Inside the cavern, Steel had managed to grab a hold of one of Iron Man's leg as he lifted off to begin his attack anew. The armored dupe of the Borg blasted Maya a glancing blow while she was in one of her more scaly six-legged forms. The teenage Cavalier, Eric, managed to turn his mystic shield away from the oncoming drones just in time to deflect one of Iron Man's powerful repulsor beams. "Will somebody do something about him already!" shouted Eric, as he turned back to the Borg.

Beside Eric stood the Mirror universe Capt. Kirk, who fired his phaser at every opening he had. "Well, I could throw the grand Emperor Rygel at them. He could probably bore even the Borg to death with his pompousness and speeches."

Rygel, on the other side of Eric, scowled at the audacious Human. "You are even ruder and more outrageous than Crichton!"

Eric was knocked back by another powerful blast against his shield. It was ticking him off. "Look! Can't we argue with each other later? Like after we miraculously survive all this!!!"

Kai fired his brace just over Iron Man's arm and then pulled it so that it would wrap around the armored appendage. Pulling back, Kai wrapped the other end around a large boulder in order to tether Iron Man to one place.

Wolverine leapt at one of the drones about to shoot Lore, but received a shot directly in the chest himself. Looking down he could see that the shot had gone all the way through him leaving a small quarter shape hole through his midsection. "Now you're really ticking me off!" Three stun beams struck him at once and he fell.

Lore, seeing Wolverine fall, knocked two of the drones away, picked up Wolverine and leapt away before he could process his actions.

The Professor, regaining consciousness, tried sitting up, but with his two legs still stuck in a block of ice it made it very difficult. "Oh my, anyone have a cup of tea?" He took in the battle around him. "I suppose not then." His immediate concerns were the two drones walking in his direction. "Oh, now this isn't very sporting!"

A young girl ran up to him and took his hand. "Run!"

"Now how can I do that where-" She pulled him and to his amazement his legs moved through the block of ice as if it wasn't there.

"Now run!" she commanded.

He tried but all he could muster was a clumsy stumble. She turned to yell at him but he managed to explain first. "This is as fast as I can muster. My legs were frozen in that ice for I don't know how long and they need to unthaw a little before I can manage to run again."

She decided not to say anything. They were going faster than the slow stepping drones. The Borg drones fired at them but the beams just past through their forms as if they weren't really there. They ducked behind a large stalagmite where River Tam was sitting. "This is nuts!" exclaimed Kitty Pryde.

River drew with her finger around one of the glowing crystals embedded in the rock flow, seemingly oblivious of the battle going on around her. "The man in a can is not playing."

Thor, who was reviving faster than most of the others, was suddenly blasted back into the side of the cave where boulders and rubble fell onto him effectually burying him.

"Right!" said Shadowcat, as her eyes fell on one of her teammates that was just standing up. "Colossus! Fast ball special at Iron Man!" She ran toward him as he reverted to his organic steel form. As soon as she was near him he picked her up by her waist and threw her through the air at Iron Man who was busy trying to hit Kai while trying to shake Steel off of his leg.

Her hands phased through the armor and a surprised Steel. She grabbed onto Tony Stark's legs and then phasing him as well so that he fell out of the Iron Man armor and they both hit the ground.

Tony, half naked, seemed dazed. Shadowcat, angry now, slapped him across the face. "Not so tough without your big metal suit, are you?" she sneered.

"Kitty!" shouted Colossus.

Kitty looked up. The gold and red armor was without it's Human occupant but it still seemed to be on it's same agenda of killing them all. Steel was knocked off and fell onto the Thing. Kitty reached out and phased herself and Tony just in time to not be hit by one of the repulsor beams.

Shadowcat pulled Tony back to shelter. "Okay, maybe I was a little quick to blame you."

Tony brought his hand to his head. "Last thing I remember was being with the Avengers. We were facing Kang."

"Well, he got you and then evidently the Fantastic Four. What I remember last was Kang using both of your teams to fight the X-Men."

"I-I think I do remember that." He pressed his forehead again. "He brought us here to check out a temporal anomaly. And then we met some opposition."

She pulled Tony around the stalagmite where River and the Professor were waiting. "Nice boxers," commented the Professor. "I never could understand why people would by underwear with lipstick lip prints all over them."

Shadowcat, now realizing the state of undress of her companion, let go of the billionaire's hand and stepped back. "Uh, so how do we stop the Iron Man suit?"

The Professor tapped his chin with the end of his umbrella. "Well, if we could interrupt the signal that was controlling it… No, that's no good the Borg would just use another way to control it. It's been too effective of a tool for them."

"We could always reboot it." Tony glanced around at the chaos around him. _How do I keep getting in these situations?_ he wondered.

Cole carried Tia toward where Sapphire was helping Rogue to get Prof. X and the Invisible Woman behind some shelter. Electra Woman and Dyna Girl provided as much cover as they could. A blast near his feet tumbled him and Tia head over heels.

"Electra Woman! My ElectraCom isn't working!" Dyna Girl pressed frantically on the large device on her wrist.

"Mine isn't responding to the controls either!"

They both looked up to see Jake Foley coming toward them.

"It's Jake. He can communicate to and manipulate computers. He's still controlled by the Borg."

In a quick movement, Barnabas Collins managed to grab Foley from behind and sink his fangs into the computer programmer's neck.

Dyna Girl shrieked. Electra Woman was about to race down to rescue Foley but instead she had to pull her sidekick to safety, not that she could blame the girl for freezing up after witnessing a vampire attack.

Collins was enjoying the hot salty fluids flowing down his throat, taking the edge off his horrific hunger. Suddenly, he gagged and pulled away from Jake. "What-what is this?"

Foley staggered for only a moment. Then he turned to face his attacker.

Barnabas stared at the young man whose face expressed no emotion. Slowly the bite on Jake's neck ceased seeping blood as it clotted at remarkable speed. Even the edges of the bite marks seemed to be slowly resealing itself. Barnabas grabbed his stomach as something seemed to tear at his insides. The Vampire staggered back but was instantly vaporized by some of the Iron Man repulsor beams which were created by solar energy absorption.

Static Shock took aim and hit Jake Foley with a long, hard stream of electricity. "Man, I hope I don't kill you but you've got to go down."

Foley fell over like a puppet with it's strings cut. The Iron Man armor flew for a few more seconds before crashing down in the rocks.

The female Changeling struck like a viper and wrapped herself around two of the drones before quickly slamming them together. The two remaining drones turned to shoot at her but Thor broke free from where he had been buried. Shouting in an ancient Norse language, he hurled his might hammer, Mjolnir, straight at the two remaining drones. Both were killed instantly.

"Someone go guard the front entrance to see if there are any more coming!" commanded Sapphire. Cole, Maya and Eric volunteered and headed over there.

Static Shock zapped the Sleestak bowman that had been injected with nanites so that he fell back from Gul Dukat. Then he upped the voltage to do the same thing that he had done to Jake.

"No!" said Enik.

"Be cool, claw man. I'm just trying to zap the things in his system. Hopefully, he'll be fine again."

"No! My people are more susceptible to electrical injury than Humans are."

"Geez, ok ok. Uh, does anyone else he smell lobster?" He looked hesitantly over at the Sleestak on the ground. Wisps of moisture seemed to rise up from the still, slightly red, body.

Dukat rose to his feat rubbing his arm where the Sleestak had held on to him. "My thanks for killing him." Quickly sensing Enik's anger as well as Static's horror, he added, "It was more merciful for him to pass quickly like this. The horrors that the Borg had planned for him in the process of assimilation is…well, you've seen what they do to those they capture." He indicated the bodies of the dead Borg drones. Some were Sleestak. Some were Human. Some were like no beings they had ever laid eyes on before.

"I didn't mean to- I used the same amount of power on Jake and he's just stunned." It was one of his worst fears come true. He'd actually killed someone. Well, actually the creature was green, scaly, a singular wide horn on its head, lobster-like claws for hands, large dark bug-eyes, but it was generally humanoid in shape and used a bow and arrow. So he most like was sentient and before the cyborgs did something to him, it was also a possible ally.

"I suppose it is excusable," said Enik reluctantly.

"I'll be more careful with powers around your people. I promise," said Static Shock.

The remaining three Sleestak bowmen surrounded their fallen comrade. "Leave us," said Enik. "We will prepare his body. Go tend to your own wounded and we will be ready to go on when you are."

Dukat guided Static Shock away with a hand on his shoulder. Seeing Capt. Kirk heading toward him he sent the teenage hero ahead to check on his friends.

"We can't let that woman lead us!" snarled Kirk.

The female Changeling flowed up from the floor. "In my studies of solid life forms I found that the female is more often more deadly than the male."

"In animals, perhaps," commented Gul Dukat. "However, with the more sentient species I think the males have proven to be just as deadly."

"You Cardassians are tricky with your words." She turned to examine the activities around them. Those that had been stunned by Kang's control collars were starting a stir, and those around them were helping them get up and filling them in on what has been going on.

Lore walked over. With half of his synthetic face covering off, including several other areas of his android body, Lore looked a mess. "I had a strange experience."

"Did one of the drones get to you?" asked Dukat, his finger tightening ever so slightly on his phaser trigger.

"No, nothing like that," he said, as he did a visual scan on the open tears to his artificial skin and pulling out small rocks in some areas. "At one point in the battle I did a remarkable thing. A Human came to my defense and fell after being shot. The strange part was that I immediately came to his rescue and carried him to safety."

Kirk seemed confused. "How is that strange?"

"I didn't intend to do it. I just found myself automatically responding to his endangerment."

"Perhaps it was just a latent sub-protocol hidden in your system by your creator," suggested the Cardassian.

"Perhaps," nodded Lore. "Dr. Soong had surprised both my brother and I like that a few times in that fashion."

The female Changeling turned to look at the others hurrying about. "Perhaps it is this place." Her eyes came to rest on Mr. Fantastic who was now awake and stretching over to where his wife was just now starting to stir. "I, too, felt something strange as I was battling the blue stretching one there. Never have I heard of a solid that was so…malleable in form. As we thrashed about struggling against each other it was almost as is he was one of my people, but we could not merge no matter how hard I pushed against him. I found the experience to be…"

"Frustrating?" suggested Dukat.

She shook her head. "No. I think the term is…kinky."

Kirk perked up. "Ok, you've got my attention."

Dukat coughed slightly as Steel walked over. "We need to get everyone over for a conference."

"We will be there in a moment," responded the Cardassian. He pointed to Jake Foley who was being helped over to where everyone was congregating. "Is he going to be a problem again?"

Steel glanced at Jake. "Electra Woman assures me that the micro-machines in Jake's body that the Borg used to overtake him have been destroyed by Static Shock. We are going to have a few other people scan him as well just to make sure. As for Iron Man, the man who wears the armor is modifying it so that it won't be compromised in that fashion again either."

As Steel walked away Kirk turned to his companions. "What do we do about leadership?"

The Changeling watched as Sapphire talked to those gathered around her. "I suggest we allow the lady Sapphire to lead for now. From what I hear we both have a similar objective."

"And it will free us to other objectives during the battle," said Dukat, before Kirk could object. "Their attention will be focuses on whoever the leader is, so it would be difficult for the leader to slip away during the fight."

Reluctantly Kirk agreed and they went to meet their allies.

**AUTHOR's NOTES**

Okay, I know I said I'd have the big battle scene with the Master at this time but I just had to conclude this part first. I'm working on it now.

Now to explain myself. Barnabas Collins was a vampire and the energy Iron Man would use to recharge himself on many occasions is that of solar energy. A repulsor beam would be made out of a lot of concentrated solar energy and that would be very bad for a vampire. Plus, all the fighting after this will be taken place outside with the sun up. Barnabas would not be much help to the rest of the team outside.

As for Jake Foley, well, I had to find a way to make him no longer a threat to the team by Borg takeover or just flat out kill him. I almost went that route but I decided to keep him on and remove the nanite problem.

As for Lore, yes, something happened to him which is why he went out of his way to save Wolverine, but I'm not saying what yet.

Next time we meet Q2's group will be in the great battle, but whose side will they be on?

**STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION**

Dr. Noonien Soong – (Brent Spiner) (mentioned only)

**DC COMICS**

Wildcat / Ted Grant (mentioned only)

Manhunter – Paul Kirk (mentioned only)

Air Wave – Larry Jordan (mentioned only)


	20. Chapter 20

**A TANGLED WEB Part 8 Chapter 20**

**By Charles Nelson**

**ACT 1**

Rygel moved around the dead drone bodies searching for anything of value or use. "You would think they would have some kind of pouch or bag on them." Most of the drones he scurried over had been converted from Sleestaks though a fair number of them proved to be Human. Neither mattered to him since they were not of his species. But he was startled when he came upon a pair of standing Sleestak legs.

"In truth, I did not notice you there," stated Enik. "I have grown accustomed to seeing scavenger creatures among our dead."

Eric, having stepped out of the cavern for some fresh air, laughed. "He sure has got your number, Rygel."

Rygel huffed in indignation. "For your information, I was looking for something that might tell us what their plans are and where others of their kind might be located. I do not deserve to be compared to scavenger beasts!"

Enik bowed his head. "My comment was not meant for rudeness. The Sleestak, who are the descendants of my people the Altrusian, observe the same tradition of placing those that have died in special cells built in alcoves. Rodents and insects come and clean the body of everything but the skeletons and claws. The rodents and insects carry the body parts out in their stomachs and leave their droppings out in the sun. The plants use this to grow. Other animals come to eat of the plants. These animals are captured by the Sleestak and are eaten."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. The circle of life and all that." Eric shook his head. Did the Altrusian really think they were that stupid? "So you must have millions of skeletons in your closet, right?"

"No, you do not understand." Enik shook his head in despair. "You are thinking of a planet with vast resources. The Land of the Lost is a micro-universe on to itself with limited resources. Here, resources like calcium must be continually spread throughout the land or all creatures would suffer from the lack of it."

"So what do you do with all those skeletons?" asked a reluctant Rygel.

"After they have dried out, they are ground up and poured into an underground river for the fish and shellfish to make use of, which are another food staple for my people's descendants."

Rygel's whispers drooped. "I'm sorry I asked."

Eric nodded. "So am I."

Inside the cavern, the people getting organized were mostly of the genre called super-heroes, such as the Avengers, Fantastic Four and the X-Men, or the individuals Electra Woman, Dyna Girl and Static Shock. The rest of the group -Maya, Sinbad, Cole, Tia Malone, River Tam, Kai and Jake Foley- could be cataloged as adventures or travelers. There were a few others that earned other labels.

Sapphire stood and prepared herself. "It is time I talked to everyone as a group."

"A moment of your time first, please," asked the enigmatic Professor. "I feel I should first explain to you a few of the more clouded facts."

"We can cover it on the way," stated Steel. "The sooner we deal with the Borg, the sooner we can try to find a fresh trail to capture Kang the Conqueror."

"I think you should hear him out," said Rogue, who was wheeling over Professor X, who was in a wheelchair. "I know some of what he has to say."

Sapphire considered the strangely attired Professor. "Do I know you from someplace?"

He shrugged. "Hard to say. I travel a lot."

Her eyes widened in recognition. "You are a Gallifreyans! An actual time-lord!"

Steel was not as awed as his partner. "Time-lords rarely stray from their home planet; what brings you here?"

"He's not just any time-lord, Steel. During the Council of Time, when the leaders of Gallifrey communed with the Aspects of Time, he was there at Rassilon's side."

"Wait! Wait!" The Professor waved his hands before him in haste. "I don't remember this. And even though Gallifreyans are forbidden to go into the past on our own planet, unless you are mistaken, then you may be referring to something that has yet to happen to me. And as a time-lord-"

"What is all this time-lord talk?" demanded Kirk.

The Professor turned around looking sheepishly at the people with whom he had been traveling. "Oh, didn't I mention that little tidbit?"

"No," said the female Changeling. She was feeling particularly moody after being told by the Invisible Woman to stay away from her husband. "He seems to have left off a number of facts. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Yes," replied the Cardassian walking up next to her. "I also seem to remember that the entity that sent us here, Q2, said that both he and his rival would each be using time-lords to supply fighters to battle against the Borg."

Lore appeared behind them. "And logic would dictate that if you were on our side you would have said so immediately, therefore you must be the enemy time-lord."

"There are a number of flaws to that theory, which normally I would point out to you, but there really is no need since I have the upper hand." He calmly sat down on a nearby rock and smiled at them.

"Is he pretending to be mad or something?" asked the Mirror universe Kirk.

"I'm not sure he's pretending at all," replied Dukat.

"We should just kill him and be done with it," said the Changeling.

"Here, here," agreed Lore.

"That is something we cannot allow," said Professor X. "You seem to forget that you are surrounded by heroes." Behind him they could see Wolverine extending his claws, Thor readying his hammer, Electra Woman and Dyna Girl with their hands hovering over their ElectraCom controls, a flaming Human Torch, Sapphire and Steel.

"Yes, that did just cross my mind, too," said Dukat. "Which is why I have just set my plasma rifle to explode if I let go of the trigger. There is also a timer involved so we won't be long on leaving you."

Rogue looked uncertain. "Professor, can you-"

He shook his head. "An alien mind that has been trained to resist telepathic intruders? No, I can not instantly take him over."

"Then we may have to let them leave," agreed Sapphire.

Dukat smiled. "Then we will be leaving. Lore, grab our friend the Professor."

The Professor shook his head. "No, the three of you can go, but Lore is staying here with me."

Lore looked him in puzzlement. "Is this a trick or have you really gone mad?"

The Professor smiled, "When I reattached your arm, Lore, I added something I had picked up in my travels. Basically, it contained something called the Three Laws of Robotics. And I uploaded it into your system."

"So that might explain why I've been behaving oddly." Lore considered it. "But let's test it." He hurried forward with his hands out to strangle the Professor.

"Wait!" Jake Foley jumped between the Professor and Lore. "Lore, stand where you are and only take orders from me from now on! For right now I don't want anyone to die!"

To Lore's amazement and everyone else's, he did as instructed.

Dyna Girl turned to Static Shock. "I thought you destroyed the machine-controlling nanites in his body?"

Static shrugged his shoulders. "I thought I did, too."

"Why did you do that?" asked a miffed Professor.

Jake let out a nervous sighed. "Because where I come from the Three Laws of Robotics are from a book series written by Isaac Asimov. The first law says a robot may not injure a Human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm."

"Yes, and…"

"You just admitted that you weren't a Human being!"

"Oh, so the Three Laws I uploaded into him would have actually let him kill me then." He scratched his chin. "That could have ended rather dreadful then."

Kirk pointed his phaser at the time-lord. "That doesn't mean I can't kill you here and now!"

But before he could come through on his threat, Lore ripped the phaser away from the bloodthirsty captain. "Damn, those stupid robotic laws!" Lore was an unhappy psychotic android.

"And you have to follow my commands, buddy," said Jake, as he was feeling somewhat cocky. He may have lost his the abilities that the nanites provided for him, but he had gained a new asset in an android servant.

"So you are casting us out?" asked the Female Shapeshifter. She wished that she had a horde of her Jem'Hadar troops to rectify this matter instead of having to use the art of diplomacy with an obviously weaker hand.

"I don't think so," said Wolverine, taking a step forward.

"I got first shot at the pervert!" shouted Dyna Girl, aiming her ElectraCom directly at Captain Kirk.

Professor X held up a hand. "Wait, Logan, Dyna Girl. They fought by our side against the Borg. In addition, they also tried not to kill us when we were under the thrall of Kang. By the standards of fair play, we should let them go."

"Verily, he speaks truth," agreed Thor.

Reluctantly, the heroes parted to let the revealed villains, minus Lore, in their midst depart.

Kirk spat as he left them.

"Until next time, bub." Wolverine lit a cigar and Kirk stepped up his pace.

Eric, Enik and Rygel walked into the cavern looking confused. "What just happened in here?" asked Eric.

**ACT 2**

Megatron, in his new confining Terminator body, adjusted his visual sensor to find the Master. His movements felt awkward and unfamiliar, as if part of his body was being short-circuited. The closest he could describe it was like a Human trying to recover after having a small stroke. Using the telescopic lens in the blaster rifle appropriated from the assassin droid, IG-88, Megatron found the form of the Master as he patrolled amongst his troops. The Decepticon was surprised that the number of people supporting the Master had grown. Stilling his thoughts he tried pulling the trigger but found that he couldn't. _The geis!_ Megatron thought. _It still keeps me from harming him even though I am in another form._

As he fumed, his sensors let him know that General Martak, Captain Sisko and Ro Laren had caught up with him. He lowered his weapon and waited for them.

"Did you find the Master?" Ro asked in a lowered tone.

"Yes, and his forces have increased since I last saw him."

Martok raised an ocular device that had been special designed for him to his good eye. "He has some unusual reinforcements. Very colorful. Not very good for this environment. Or any other that I can think of."

"Do you have the skill to shoot him from here?" asked Megatron.

Martok was insulted. "Where is the honor in that? No, a true foe should be faced head on."

Megatron clenched his fist. "But his geis on me won't let me strike at him."

"Very dishonorable, I agree," said Martok. "So you shall clear a path for me, and I will be your weapon against this coward."

"As good as that plan sounds," interrupted Captain Sisko, "we are still outnumbered many times over. We need to survey the area and wait for the others."

"Megatron," Ro said, hesitant about talking to the mechanical being. "Are there any of your people in that camp that you could trust to contact and not give you away?"

Sisko nodded. Ro was Bajoran and had spent much of her life under the rule of the Cardassians. She had also been a resistance fighter and knew many different tactics in sneaking into an enemy's camp.

"My Decepticons are loyal to me."

"There are none that wouldn't seek to rise in your demise?" she asked.

Megatron hesitated. "I see what you mean. But I think the one least likely to turn on me would be Soundwave."

"You'll have to point him out to us," said Batman.

Everyone jumped. "When did you get here? And how did you do that?" demanded Ro, who thought she had been ready for anything.

Terry McGinnis smiled. "I been here a while. As for the other thing, well, I'm Batman. That's what I do."

**ACT 3**

Starscream and Skywarp slowed for a landing, transforming from their fighter jet forms to their more humanoid shape forms. As he landed he took a few steps to stand before the time-lord they knew only as the Master. "Master, we have returned from the valley."

Behind them, in the valley down below a cloud of smoke billowed up and could be seen for miles. The Master knew that the Doctor and his allies would have noticed that and come to investigate. That moved the time table up some, but he still was in the prime spot to win. Still, he wished that the explosion had occurred over in the valley the Borg occupied. "What happened down there?"

"We are not entirely sure, but we have someone who perhaps will be willing to explain it to you." Starscream turned to Skywarp and nodded.

Skywarp pulled a disheveled form from one of his compartments and tossed him on the ground. The orange and green outfit helped to identify him immediately as the Mirror Master, along with the mirror he wore on his chest.

"You?" The Master spat in anger. "You were on guard duty near the valley. For what reason did you abandon your post? And why didn't those guarding it with you inform me?" He turned to where Mirror Master's post had been about three hundred yards away, and saw him standing there next to those with whom he was on guard duty. "What trickery is this?" The Master turned to one of his guards.

Deathbolt, Deadshot, Captain Nazi, Trapjaw, Storm Shadow and Mantenna stood just off to one side as his personnel bodyguards. They hadn't exactly been thrilled with the idea, but after he had touched them each with a glowing red cube he had informed them that when his life ceased they would each die in burning agony. It was a lie of course, as the red cube was merely a credit chip from the Pegasus galaxy, but he knew they wouldn't want to test it and would make sure that no one else did either. He also knew better than to try trick Brainiac or some of the others who would find a way to see if his claim of death was fraud.

"Deadshot! See if that is the real Mirror Master over there."

Deadshot tossed down his cigarette and raised one of his wrist-mounted guns and fired. The far away version shattered into glass along with those that were also supposed to be on guard with him.

The Master was furious. Not only the Mirror Master, but three others had evidently chosen to escape from his services as well. "Who was that with him? The others figures that broke up in the glass; who were they?"

"I recognized Dr. Alchemy and Giganta. Don't know the other fella." Deadshot pulled out another cigarette.

"I know the other guy," said Deathbolt, as he bummed a cigarette off of Deadshot. "Goes by the name of the Yellow Wasp. He fought Wildcat a lot. We were going to team-up once on a gig but I had the bad luck of getting picked up by the Manhunter and Air Wave before hand." Deathbolt used a crackle of electricity to lite his cigarettes.

The mirror themed villain stood there looking remorseful. "Why did you leave? What happened to the others?" demanded the Master.

The Mirror Master was hesitant but finally found his voice. "We got to talking. Me and the others, that is. Things seemed rather dour staying here and fighting those cyborg zombies and, well, it looked like it was going to get a lot worse so we…well, we decided to scram before things really hit the fan. I set up movable images of us on guard and we left."

He paused, unsure of something but continued. "When we got close to the valley some of the Borg spotted us. Giganta fell first. She tried growing to get away but whatever that stuff they put in her proved to be too much. Lucky for us she managed to reach giant size before she fell. She became a Human wall between them and us. But it was only temporarily. About forty-five minutes later they stunned the Wasp when we stumbled across them. Dr. Alchemy and I held our ground for about ten minutes or more. I zapped them with my mirror weapons while he used his Philosopher's Stone and turned them into various elements of the periodic table. But the Borg flanked us out by having some of their guys come from behind. Alchemy got injected but he refused to become a living zombie. He did something with his Philosopher's Stone. I don't know what it was he was about to do but the look in his eyes scared me so I hightailed it out of there. The next thing I know there's this huge explosion."

Anger caused the Master's finger to tremble slightly on the trigger of his Tissue Compression Eliminator. "Did you really think that you could escape my wrath?"

The Mirror Master looked uncomfortable. "I don't know if you can call what we did as thinking really. We just wanted to get out of here."

"I should destroy you here and now!" But he didn't. Something was wrong with this. And then he had it. "I see. This was all just another ruse to assassinate me."

The Mirror Master looked startled, but the Master's new bodyguards fanned out, serious about their duty.

"None of you are able to lift a finger to harm me, but if I fired my Tissue Compression Eliminator at you, Mirror Master, it would automatically be reflected back at me due to some ingenious device on your person no doubt." He laughed.

"Uh, it wasn't exactly my idea."

"No doubt," agreed the Master. "You do not have the cleverness of such a scheme. Most likely it was Luthor or that android Brainiac. I shall deal with them later. But tell me, what of the others?"

"They were dupes who followed me down there. What I told you actually happened. Why make up stuff when the truth will do."

"Indeed. I will not miss the Yellow Wasp, but Giganta and Dr. Alchemy interested me. But, alas, many resources are lost in battle."

"Uh, what about me?" asked the Mirror Master.

"I'm tempted to have Starscream drop you from as high as the sky dome over this place, but instead I will use your abilities yet again. You will stand and fight in front of the front line."

"You mean with the front line, right?"

"No. I mean exactly what I said. When the Borg attack again, you will be the first defender they meet. You are a resourceful man. If you survive them, then you will have proven that you are of the kind of mettle that I am looking for. Then and only then will I find a place of service for you when I take power." He took out a glowing red cube from his inner pocket and pressed it against Mirror Master's head before he could do anything. "That should keep you in place."

"What is that supposed to do?" he asked, with growing concern.

The Master smiled wickedly. "Let's just say if things go wrong it'll make for an interesting spectacle."

Deathbolt led the almost certainly condemned man away. The Master and the rest of entourage of bodyguards walked over to where Luther and Brainiac were discussing things at the remaining tower.

"As you most likely know by now, your most recent attempt to have me killed has failed."

Luthor looked at him with mild curiosity. "Not every attempt will come from us, whether you believe it or not. A number of the people you have here in your forced servitude can be quite diabolical all on their own. Take my Earth 2 counterpart, Alexei Luthor, or Vandal Savage, for example. Or even that fool Joker. You have surrounded yourself with numerous seekers for your demise."

"Brainiac!" called out the Riddler, who was helping to watch the equipment for the antenna. "I have a signal here!"

The green-skinned android had been working on a wide scale force-field for protection against the Borg. He used parts from some of the equipment they had brought with them, but had had to scavenge from the remains of some of the Decepticons and two of the fallen Cybermen. "That's for the quantum dimensional gate. Someone else has decided to join us."

"If this is another one of your tricks…" But the threats of the Master went unheeded as a portal near the antenna began to form. Five figures emerged causing many people to go onto the defensive.

"Hold!" shouted Lex Luthor. "They are the evil counterparts of the heroes we know!"

Lex moved forward to greet Ultraman, Superwoman, Owlman, Power Ring and Johnny Quick of Earth 3's Crime Syndicate. Each was an almost exact yet evil copy of Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Green Lantern and the Flash, respectively. Lex began introductions but was soon called back again.

"Lex, we have another arrival coming in. This time from your home dimension."

"Late arrivals?" Luthor turned to Captain Cold. "When you contacted your friends, did you arrange anything else?"

"Hey, I was here with you, remember? One of the new arrivals from our universe probably left instructions on how to get here for somebody running late."

"The fools! They could easily have led these super do-gooders right to us!" Deadshot and the other bodyguards took position and readied themselves for action.

Out of the wormhole came a withered old man in a general's uniform standing on a jet propelled platform with a futuristic gun mounted on it. "General Immortus," said Brainiac. The next man to come out had a fern covered leg and arm on his right side, his left leg appeared to be made of silver and his arm was long and tentacled. "The Animal-Mineral-Vegetable Man," announced the android foe of Superman. Next came a large gorilla carrying a large glass-domed pillar that contained what looked like a human brain. "The Brain and his ape companion Monsieur Mallah," noted Brainiac. Another arrival came in the form of a large obese green man in a purple smock riding on a hover-throne and followed by sixty androids of similar designs – twenty were in yellow, twenty in blue and another twenty in red. "Garguax and his android servants."

The next five came out together. "If I'm not mistaken that is Prof. Amos Fortune and his Royal Flush Gang," said Luthor. "I hadn't known they had gotten back together."

The next three to come through the worm hole was a large robot, a red hot stoney figure that was roughly humanoid, and a man with an extra-large head. "Kra, the Volcano man and Multi-Man who make up the League of Challenger-Haters," pointed out the Riddler, not to be outdone.

Nine more people arrived but they were not apart of a group. Brainiac, Luthor and the Riddler announced them each to the Master while giving some comment on their abilities and how effective they thought they could be. Professor Ivo and his android Amazo were thought to be very useful as was the Parasite and Dr. Double X. The Signalman and Clock King were not the best of fighters, but could be used as cannon foder. Matter Master, Abra Kadabra and Dr. Polaris would be very useful though Dr. Polaris seemed concerned about the fact that there wasn't a magnetic pole in this strange place.

The wormhole opened one more time. "Strange," said Brainiac. "The signal is originating from our universe but it's from the thirtieth century."

"Ah, so they did get my message." Lex grinned. "This should ensure our victory."

"We shall see," said the Master.

The first to arrive was a cold but beautiful woman dressed in green with green hair. She was followed by a floating eye bigger than a basket ball with a green iris. "Ah, the Emerald Empress of the Fatal Five." She was followed by, "the Persuader and his atomic ax." Next came, "Mano and his disintegrating hand. He can kill with a touch." Then came, "Tharok, who had the right side of his body blown off and replaced with a robotic one." Behind Tharok came a massive figure that barely made in through the wormhole. It had a purple body but the top of it's head was transparent revealing it's brain which emitted bursts of mental lightning. "And Validus, whose very form should explain itself." Even the Master was awed somewhat by the sight of Validus.

Next and last to arrive was the Legion of Super-Villains. Luthor only knew a few of the nineteen members to arrive. He let Lightning Lord introduce their members who consisted of Chameleon Chief, Cosmic King, Esper Lass, the Hunter, Lazon, Magno Lad, Micro Lad, Mist Master, Nemesis Kid, Neutrax, Radiation Roy, Ron-Karr, Silver Slasher, Spider Girl, Sun Emperor, Terrus, Titania and Tyr.

The new arrivals were welcomed by those who had already faced the Borg. They were not happy to learn of the geis now placed on them regarding the Master though. Brainiac had managed to raise his force field just before Ultraman could kill them.

Then it was the Master's turn to talk. And he explained what they were up against and the potential rewards that awaited then. Garguax was outraged, but the Master used his Tissue Compression Eliminator on one of his androids which brought about a lot of consideration by the new arrivals.

"Worlds for each us? Our own personal planets to play with?" Ultraman considered it. It might be worth it for a while. At least until they could figure out how to get the upper hand on the Master. "Well, let's get on with it then. I haven't been in a decent fight in quite a while."

Missiles flew up from the valley of the Borg, each equipped with laser weaponry. Instantly, Black Adam, Star Sapphire, Baron Blitzkrieg, Captain Nazi, Skywarp, Starscream, Ultraman, Power Ring, Dr. Double X, Amazo, Emerald Empress, Lazon and Magno Lad flew up to intercept followed by a befuddled Bizarro.

"Brainiac, what do your scans indicate?" asked the Master.

"They are blocking most of the scans," said the green android. "However, visual scans reveal each missile carries at least one drone."

As the flying villains neared the rockets, phaser beams lashed out. Captain Nazi ducked behind Ultraman who proved to be impervious to the attack, as was Black Adam, Dr. Double X, Amazo and Bizarro. Lazon, moving at near lightspeed, evaded and began his own attack with blasts of light energy at concentrated levels. Star Sapphire, Power Ring and the Emerald Empress raised a shield to protect themselves, but Magno Lad was instantly and lethally fried. Skywarp had one of his wings blown off and spiraled off toward the trees where they knew drones were currently active. No one went to help him. As the villains retaliated, more drone rockets launched from the other side of the camp.

"We need more flyers!" shouted Luthor.

Toyman, his leg in a cast from an earlier attack, sent up a squadron of very lethal and very explosive toy sized bi-wing planes by remote control.

General Immortus cackled at the thrill of a fight and prepared his jet propelled platform for takeoff. He looked back at some of the more reluctant people. "Come on, you sissies! You want to live forever?" He cackled as he flew off. The Golden Glider raced after him skating into the air even though her brother shouted for her to come back. Terra-Man flew up on his white winged horse yee-hawing all the way.

The Royal Flush Gang took off, each on large flying platforms that looked like playing cards. Chameleon Chief morphed into a large flying reptile, followed by the winged Uglor, a simian-like alien.

Lazon inflicted damage on four of the rockets before doing enough damage to bring one down. "That's one for-" A series of beams from five of the Borg vessels near him tore into him. As he lost consciousness, his form reverted to it's physical state and gravity took hold of him. He never regained consciousness before impacting lethally on the ground.

As the more powerful members began smashing the rockets, the Emerald Empress hung back with Star Sapphire, each thinking it was too dangerous to get close to the rockets. Power Ring, however, was gleefully ramming the rockets with his ring powered body shield protecting him. He barely had time to react when the force field of one of the rockets suddenly crackled just before he smashed into it because he had been killed instantly.

"The fool!" Star Sapphire was not sad to see him die though, just that another resource for fighting had been wasted.

The Emerald Empress used her Emerald Eye of Ekron to catch Power Ring's corpse in a hand of green energy and bring him to her. Then, with glee, she took off his ring for herself. "A beautiful shade of green, don't you think. It will look good in my collection."

A frown appeared on Star Sapphire's head. "Power Ring was just a poor imitation of Green Lantern, who is my foe! If anyone around her deserves to have that ring it is me!"

The Emerald Empress barely had time to shield herself before Star Sapphire began blasting her with the sapphire on her forehead. Theirs was a separate battle and none came near their airspace for fear of being destroyed by the vast amounts of energy being thrown around.

Meanwhile, the powerhouses found that they now had a problem as the rockets were now shielded with force fields when they attacked. Not that that stopped Dr. Double X, who just phased through the force fields and kept attacking. Bizarro used his freezing vision which worked just as well and gave the others the idea to try alternative methods of attacking. Black Adam used brute force to push one of the rockets away and into a mountainside. Baron Blitzkrieg used his heat vision. Amazo used a combination of the different powers he had copied from the Justice League of America and was proving to be the most effective.

From the other side of the Master's base, Toyman's planes were only useful for the first two passes before they were destroyed. The Golden Glider raced forward and threw a pair of explosive diamond earrings at one of the rockets which exploded. Unfortunately, she had not counted of that big of a blast and was knocked end over end. Fortunately, she was caught by General Immortus' flying platform.

"Thank you," she said, as she got her bearings.

He was blasting away with his mounted gun but it was proving to be useless now as the Borg had adapted to it. "Think nothing on it. You remind me of a concubine I owned when I was studying under Julius Caesar." He winked at her as only a lecherous old coot could.

"What's that?" she said, pointing at a nearby rocket that seemed to be immersed in a large floating gelatinous creature that resembled a jellyfish crossed with a spider.

The old man squinted. "That's the shape shifting orange man that came with those folks from the future."

The Royal Flush Gang flew around toward the rockets under the urgings of Professor Amos Fortune. They used energy swords and explosive playing cards and a few other items. Suddenly, an independent flying drone, who had been formally known as Vultak, one of Hordak's warriors, flew down and grabbed the Queen of Clubs from behind, injecting her with nanites as she struggled. The King of Clubs tried to go to her aid but was stunned by one of the drones in the rocket and fell to his death. The other members of the Royal Flush Gang knowing they were in a losing fight fled back to the ground.

Uglor flew around one of the Borg vessels, blasting away with the destructive energy blasts from his red bionic eyes, when suddenly struck with a high intensity Borg energy beam, killing him instantly, leaving his body to fall to the ground.

Beams of light came down from the rockets striking toward the antenna that was blocking their collective mind from working. Brainiac's force field held for a few moments and then flickered out as the intensity of the beams proved too much for it.

"They'll attack on land again!" said the Master. "Be prepared to fight to the death, because they want to capture you alive. And you don't want that."

Borg drones appeared from the woods on all sides. A scream came that surprised everybody. From the tents where they had been conducting tests on those that had been injected with the Borg nanites, people hurried out of the tents. T.O. Morrow ran for all he was worth. Behind him, the Thinker was blasted by the ocular helmet of an infected Black Manta. Modulok used the blaster built into his left arm to kill Black Manta and some of the other infectees behind him. Dr. Sivana was being strangled by his infected daughter. His son, Sivana Jr., used a pipe and smashed her head in to save their father. The green faced Wotan was using his magic to hold back the infectees when a blast from one of the rockets knocked him off his feet. Before he could protect himself, the Rattler had bitten him causing nanites to flow into him.

The Space Ghost foe, Forvalokka the Soul Vampire, stepped in front of the Borg controlled Jitsu. "Now let's see about changing your alliegance," he chucked as he began to use his trance stare to turn him into one of his personal zombies. He jerked in surprise as he encountered something inside Jitsu unlike anything he had ever experienced before. It was more than one mind; it was billions of minds. Many were very alien with senses he could not understand. He began to flee to his mind only to realize that the collective mind of the Borg was following after him on the mental bridge he had created. But Forvalokka had not been assimilated, and was therefore unable to contain everything that was flooding into him. Instantly, he suffered multiple, massive brain aneurysms, and fell over dead.

"Contain them!" shouted the Master.

General Traag began issuing orders to those who didn't know where they should go. Moltar and Zorak led a group to dispose of the infectees they had been trying to contain earlier in order to cure. King Kull, Monocle, Scorpia and the Volcano Man each waded in and made short work of them.

As the others were racing toward their stations, the Master began to hear an all too familiar grinding sound. "He chooses to arrive now? Then let him!" He turned to General Traag in order to prepare a proper reception for his nemeses.

**AUTHOR'S NOTES:**

_Yes, I had been planning to use the Three Laws of Robotics on Lore. I tried to give a hint that I had done that last posting when he unexpectedly saved Wolverine from the Borg._

_Alright, everybody wants to know why I brought in so many new villains toward the end. Well, I did a head count and found that I had done away with a lot of the Master's army before the big battle. I just couldn't have that so I decided to stack the deck a little to make it more of a fight. I assume most people know the characters I picked out, but for those that don't here is some direction as to who they are. _

_The League of Challenger-Haters was formed to fight against the Challengers of the Unknown. _

_The Crime Syndicate are from Earth-3 where everybody that is normally good is evil, and those that are normally evil are good._

_General Immortus, Animal-vegetable-Mineral Man, the Brain, Monsieur Mallah and Garguax are all foes of the Doom Patrol. I loved the original team of the Doom Patrol and I believe that they inspired the creation of the X-Men._

_The Royal Flush Gang usually fought against the Justice League of America._

_The Fatal Five and the Legion of Super-Villains fight against the Legion of Super-Heroes in the 30__th__ century._

**DC COMICS**

Ultraman

Superwoman

Owlman

Power Ring

Johnny Quick

General Immortus

Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man

Brain

Monsieur Mallah

Garguax

Prof. Amos Fortune

King of Clubs

Queen of Clubs

Jack of Clubs

Ten of Clubs

Kra

Volcano Man

Multi-Man

Parasite

Prof Ivo

Amazo

Signalman

Dr. Double X

Clock King

Matter Master

Abra Kadabra

Dr. Polaris

Emerald Empress

Mano

Persuader

Tharok

Validus

Chameleon Chief

Cosmic King

Esper Lass

Hunter II

Lazon

Lightning Lord

Magno Lad

Micro Lad

Mist Master

Nemesis Kid

Neutrax

Radiation Roy

Ron-Karr

Silver Slasher

Spider Girl

Sun Emperor

Terrus

Titania

Tyr


	21. Chapter 21

A Tangled Web Part 8

**A Tangled Web Part 8.21**

**By Charlie Nelson**

**ACT 1**

Leonard McCoy leaned against a tree while the others caught up with him. After taking a swig from his canteen he handed to Jean-Luc Picard who had just reached him. "It's been years since I've hiked like this. I ache in places I had forgotten I had."

"Rejuvenation seems to suit you, admi-…Bones." Picard found himself unsure of how to relate to this childhood legend before him. He had met many famous people in his time, but McCoy was part of the legend. Spock was, too.

Kes, now looking much stronger was helping her former captain, Katherine Janeway along the trail. "Any sign of the others?" she asked.

"They came this way," answered McCoy. "We know that much for sure. But, if they were determined to follow Megatron, there's no telling how far they may have gone. Especially if we are not using our communicators."

Janeway accepted the canteen of water gratefully as well as the comfort of leaning into a moss covered tree. She glanced back as Ambassador Spock brought up the rear.

"Any sign of the sniper?" asked Picard.

The Vulcan's face looked almost grim. "I picked up something on my tricorder, but then it was gone. His armor seems to be able to block most of our sensors. I believe he may have been watching me in order to gauge how close he can come before he is detected. He truly is a professional."

"Great. A perfectionist assassin." McCoy carefully put away the canteen. When he looked up his jaw about dropped. "Either Spock has finally driven me to insanity or maybe we just crossed over to the hereafter."

When the others turned to see what McCoy was referring to, most of them were stunned to speechlessness.

"Didn't we see that man before?" asked Kes, referring to a man with a very torn shirt walking in an open field slightly parallel to them but about thirty yards away.

"Jim!" Bones raced forward to greet his long lost friend. "How the hell did you end up here?"

Kirk looked up in confusion. "Bones?" As McCoy came in to embrace him, Kirk hit him with a haymaker that knocked him back onto the ground.

"Ow! What the hell…" He looked up to see his long lost friend pointing a phaser rifle at him."

"You can't imagine how many times I've dreamed of doing this!" he snarled. "You should have never sided with Spock against me, you second-hand medical quack!"

A phaser blast erupted in next to the ground of Kirk causing him to jump back and flee.

Picard came up next to McCoy but kept his phaser trained in the direction of fleeing Kirk. "What in tarnation is going on here?"

Spock helped him to his feet as Kes and Janeway came up behind him. "Did you not see his uniform? That was the Kirk from the Mirror universe."

Embarrassment filled him. "Sorry, Spock. I should have my head scanned for Alzheimer's even though I know I'm up on my innoculation. I just so much wanted it to be him." He looked at Spock sheepishly. "You know, our Kirk." Looking for Kirk, he could see him rejoining Dukat and the female Shapeshifter a little ways away. "It seems like he had momentarily thought I was the McCoy from his universe, too."

Spock hesitated on the verge of expressing an emotion when Janeway tackled him to the ground. Blaster fire struck the ground near them and everyone went on alert.

"The sniper is back," announced Kes.

More fire came from Dukat and Kirk. The female Changeling zipped along the undergrowth but had been spotted by Spock who winged her, causing her to writhe in pain as she flowed away.

"Ve rr apped!" exclaimed Janeway through her wired jaw.

"They have us pinned down on either side!" shouted Picard. "We have to clear a way through one of the sides or we won't make it!"

Spock looked for the sniper. "The sniper – Boba Fett I think he is called – is too well protected in all that foliage."

"Maybe not," said Kes. She bent down, dug her fingers into the ground and closed her eyes.

Boba Fett was standing on a massive tree limb. By leaning over around the tree, he had a clear shot at his prey while exposing very little of his body. His targets had been proving rather interesting. He was rather disappointed to finding it end like this; shooting at them in a crossfire position.

Suddenly vines rose from the ground foliage and began to rap around him. Acting on instinct he grabbed his vibro-knife and began to try save himself from the carnivorous plant life. Somehow he was sure that his prey had engineered this attack. They were proving to be very hard to kill. He liked that in a hunt. I was more of a challenge.

"This way is clear now," Kes said, and took off pulling Janeway along with her.

McCoy, Spock and Picard laid down a continuous line of fire as they backed off to safety. They wanted to press the attack but there was a lot of clear ground they would have to cover to get near them. No, it would be better to wait for now.

**ACT 2**

General Traag barked orders as he tried organizing the defense against the Borg. It didn't help that the new arrivals didn't know to listen to him or have much knowledge about fighting the Borg.

Then he caught a sight coming from the valley that they knew the Borg were most concentrated. He turned and hailed Scrapper of the Decepticons. "Scrapper, get your fellow Constructicons together! We are going to have to use your Devastator form!"

Scrapper, who had been using his wheeled front-load shovel form with varied success, sifted back to his humanoid robotic form. "Why? Right now the six of us are able to fight in six different directions. If we take our Devastator form, we'll be just one big target for the Borg."

"Because that is coming!" General Traag pointed an orange silicon finger toward the Borg valley. The sight at first was daunting enough but at second glance the figure was more recognizable. Even though she was only lightly grey, the towering Giganta was clearly now a drone. However, instead of being fitted with drone paraphernalia, her right arm, leg and side of face had been replaced by those that had previously belonged on the giant android known as Mr. Atom, a foe of Captain Marvel, who had been confiscated by the Borg soon after arriving in the Land of the Lost.

"Oh, hey, you're right. That does look like a fight for Devastator." Scrapper called out to his fellow Constructicons, telling them to hurry. Scavenger, Hook, Long Haul and Bonecrusher responded right away. Mixmaster was in his concrete mixer form pouring out a load onto some oncoming drones in order to slow them down. After he arrived, they flew up into formation and formed Devastator. Stepping on some of the drones, they went to battle the Giganta/Mr. Atom drone.

Seeing that most everybody that he could get to was in place for the moment, General Traag glanced over to where the Master was organizing resistance against the small rectangular box that he called a TARDIS. It didn't look like much in Traag's opinion, but he knew that looks could be very deceiving. But he would follow his orders. He would organize the troops on this end, while the Master would lead the troops by the TARDIS.

As the doors of the TARDIS opened, the Master had various villains open fire upon it. But it was repelled by an invisible shield. To his frustration, he could only watch as the Doctor walked out with a young black haired girl wearing a spandex red outfit with black outlines which covered her hands and legs while having a yellow lower case 'i' in a swirl of black on the front of her shirt. It was quite evident that it was the little girl that was somehow blocking his attack.

"I was wondering when you would grace us with your presence," said the Master coldly. He made slight motions to his personal bodyguards to step away from him so that he could be easily seen. It was a bold gesture and one he could easily afford to make since the Doctor was not the type to make an assassination attempt.

The Doctor gave his old foe a toothy grin. "Well, this was a rather unique event so I decided to put my heads together in order to deal with it properly." Behind him, the other incarnations of the Doctor disembarked and took their place at his side. A united front of nine incarnations of the Doctor against the Master.

The Master gawked only briefly before smiling again. "You have proven to be more of a threat to the Gallifreyan Council then I. Our laws clearly dictate that we are never to come in contact with our previous or future incarnations."

"Yes, how ironic it is for you to quote Gallifreyan law. Still, even the Gallifreyan Council has found that sometimes in order to circumvent a great evil a few laws must be broken. Or at least bent." The Doctor continued to grin while behind him a number of athletic and adventurous looking people of all sorts and shapes came out of the TARDIS. Some were clearly not Human but the Master didn't want to waste time speculating. Some of those that stood next to their incarnation of the Doctor that Master had met before. Mentally he recollected their names. Ian Chesterton. Barbara Wright. Jamie McCrimmon. Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. Captain Mike Yates. Sergeant Benton. Sarah Jane Smith. Tegan Jovanka. Nyssa of Traken. Mel Bush. Dr. Grace Holloway. And a few others he didn't know.

"Oh, Dr. Psycho?" The Master called to one of his diminutive servants. "Could you say hello to that little girl making the force field?"

The psychotic madman grinned at the opportunity and extended his mind toward the young teen.

Invisible Girl had been gritting her teeth as she held up her invisible field to the onslaught of the rouges. Suddenly, she felt a presence in her mind and it radiated an aura of twistedness beyond anything she had experienced. She gasped and let out a cry of disgust before falling backwards. Her mother, Elastigirl, stretched out to form a cushion out of her arms, and then quickly retracted her back to safety. Elastigirl gave the Doctor a stern look but said nothing.

Even as the invisible field fell, Frozone, friend and ally of the Incredibles, set up a thick ice barrier. But not before something zipped past him.

Before Dr. Psycho could finish his first sadistic giggle, Dash, the younger brother of the Invisible Girl, had already run up to him and struck him over a hundred times. Even as the miniature mental maniac fell backwards Dash kept striking him. It was only after he had pounded him about an inch into the ground that the quick-tempered Dash stopped to look at his surroundings. "Uh oh."

Dash dodged various villains as they tried to grab a hold of him. Abra Kadabra, who was used to going up against the Flash, tried to shoot him with something from his wand but Dash ducked and it struck the Parasite who had come up behind him, turning him into a life-size cardboard cutout of himself. Zorak, an alien that resembled a giant mantis, almost had him when Dash ran into the very malleable villain Clayface, but the super fast youngster started spinning and the villains ended up having to duck for cover which left Dash a wide opening. That is until he noticed the villainous speedster, Johnny Quick of the Crime Syndicate. Both of them took off at top speed, Dash doing everything he could to lose the laughing evil maniac running after him.

That was when the villains realized that Dash had distracted them just enough for the heroes to get the drop on them. Mr. Incredible punched the evil sentient robot Kra leaving a deep dent in it's side. Then he lifted it high over his head and threw it at the Animal-Mineral-Vegetable Man who quickly shifted into his iron mode. Kra, sputtered and sparked, but managed to get itself upright and charge Mr. Incredible again.

Heroes, though outnumbered, surged forward to battle the army of the Master. It was the Doctor's sixth incarnation that led the charge with a sonic gun in each hand. And what a charge it was. It consisted of many of the heroes that had already faced the Borg and when asked by the Doctor, were willing to come and finish the threat to the Multiverse. They formed a wedge that pushed through the ill prepared villains and on to the Borg. At the forefront were a young Clark Kent running next to a costumed Ralph Hinkley. Following them were Hercules, Xena and Buffy Summers. Angel trotted after with no fear of sunlight since he had been rendered immune to it's effects due to previous wish fulfillment by Buffy. Steve Austin ran after, and was glad that his pregnant wife was safe at home. Dagger, the composite of Dagwood, Joxer and Tim O'Neill, stopped only to knock Ibac back into some of the villains to keep the path clear. Gabrielle ran at the head of her Amazon warriors, nodding slightly to Dagger as they pasted. The Gargoyles led by Goliath followed, growling threateningly as they passed. Kenny rode atop Bronx's back and laughed with pleasure. A troop of sentient Gorillas, Chimpanzees and Orangutans followed Leela and her mate, Max. Tarzan ran ahead with the Apes, but he was followed by closely Kato and Lothar. The Phantom ran along side Jim West and Lord Bowler with Artemus Gordon and Brisco County, Jr trying to keep up. Elizabeth led her Visitor troops side by side with Jack O'Neill's Human troops. Col. "Hannibal" Smith, Sgt. "B.A." Baracus and Capt. "Howling Mad" Murdock charged after laying down some cover fire when they thought they needed it. Lennier had taken the rear with Bill Maxwell, Fox Mulder, Albert Gibson, Harry and Helen Tasker, Lee Stetson and his wife Amanda.

Galen walked leisurely next to Robocop. Behind them came Dureena Nafeel and a younger and much transformed Lex Luthor along with his subservient Borg drones that he controlled after his own unique incarceration into the Borg.

After they passed, it had started to become evident to the Master and the villains what had just happened. The heroes had set up two forces. One to fight the Borg and the other to fight them.

Commander Keith Akira Kogane contacted his four friends from where he sat comfortably in his giant mecha robot that was fashioned to resemble a black lion. On the screen before him he could see his four comrades preparing their similar mecha robots. He still was amazed that the Doctor had a way to store the mecha robots and everyone else in the TARDIS. "Alright everyone, let's make this quick. The Doctor is counting on us. And you all know the great debt that our people owe the time-lord after he helped stop forces of King Zarkon and Prince Lotor.

Princess Allura of the planet Arus nodded respectfully from where she sat in her blue lion mecha. "Today we pay back that great debt."

"Ha! This will be a piece of cake!" said Lance McClain, who sat in the red lion.

"McClain, I'm reminding you again." Kogane gave him a stern look, "The Doctor told us not to underestimate our rivals."

"Aw, come on," said the light-hearted McClain. "Maybe we can turn it into a game and see who can take down the most of them."

"I'll win that one!" cried Darrell "Pidge" Stoker. Pidge was the youngest of the group at thirteen years old, but he was more than adept when it can to controlling the green lion ship he was in. It leapt up in to the air before the others could say anything.

"Pidge!" Kogane sent his black lion after the Green Lion. Princess Allura followed in her blue lion while Lance McClain and Tsuyoshi "Hunk" Garett came in their red and yellow lions.

Kogane tried again to warn his teammates of what they would be facing. "Remember that the Doctor told us to expect to see a number of unique and powerful beings. So be careful and watch out for each other."

"I think you are giving them too much credit," said McClain.

"Yeah!" shouted Pidge. "I bet they've never seen anything like us before either." A look of surprise and then disbelief seemed to cross his young face.

"What is it, Pidge?" asked Hunk.

"Off on the portside. Do you see what's on that Borg vessel?"

The Borg missiles had all reconfigured to small square metal vessels for which the means of there support in the air was not immediately apparent. Each of the vessels were hovering over the Master's camp, but on one of them was a twenty foot tall purple spider thing with way more legs and had just bit the head off of a Borg drone.

"Do you think it is on their side?" asked Princess Allura, referring to the spider-like creature which was actually the Chameleon Chief of the Legion of Super-Villains.

"Don't know," admitted Kogane, "so let's give it some space for now."

Something crashed into Pidge's mecha ship. Alarms started to go off but he silenced them and did a quick systems check as well as turning on and checking several exterior cameras to see what the damage was. He was surprised to see a chalk white man wearing a blue suit with a red cape and trunks starting to stand up on his ships exterior. When the man turned he could also see a backwards 'S' emblazoned on his chest.

"Goodbye, green kitty cat. Me am Bizarro."

Pidge hesitated, but then turned on his external speakers. "Uh, hate to break it to you, Bizarro. But I think we are enemies."

Tears welled up in Bizarro's eyes. "That mean so little to Bizarro."

One of the Borg cubes sent a tractor beam onto Pidge's green lion. Bizarro reacted to the threat of the kitty cat by flying straight at the Borg vessel, but the vessel, having experienced Bizzaro's attacks numerous times now, blasted him away into the horizon.

Pidge began firing on the small cube ship and disabled it's tractor beam. Then he went in for the kill. He was surprised when he heard his teammates shouting for him to stop. "What?"

"You are right over the battlefield!" shouted Hunk. "You blast that thing now and it'll fall on our allies' heads!"

Just then, Black Adam rammed one of the Borg cubes. It's shield protected it but the evil powerhouse continued to push it so that it moved away from the camp.

"Great Quasars! How powerful is that guy? I'm going to follow him," said McClain

After it had cleared the camp, Black Adam flew away and dodged being shot by the cube. Black Adam pointed to McClain's ship and then to the Borg vessel.

"Hey! He wants me to shoot it!" He obliged by firing on the vessel and then watching it fall.

Kogane got everyone's attention on their vidcomms. "The Master's fighters up here don't know that we are on another side."

"So we can catch then off guard, right?" said McClain. Then he remembered just how powerful Black Adam seemed to be and began to have second thoughts.

"No, we work with them for now."

"The old 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' ploy?" asked Hunk

"Something like that, yes," answered Kogane.

"I see something I can help with," said Princess Allura. She flew off to rescue Star Sapphire and the Emerald Empress, who had been fighting each other and caught off guard by the Borg, who stunned them and had them in a tractor beam. She was amazed to find a man riding a white winged horse flying over to help as well.

Kogane called to the rest of the team. "Try find someone you can pair up with. As far as we are concerned the Borg are the bigger threat right now. These guys know more about fighting the Borg than we do. Also, if we do end up having to fight these guys, at least we will have some knowledge of what we are up against."

Princess Allura nodded and turned off toward where Amazo was being fired on by three small cube ships. Kogane stayed with Black Adam while Hunk moved to help Baron Blitzkrieg and Captain Nazi who looked like they were being overwhelmed. McClain sought to help Chameleon Chief. And Pidge stuck with Bizarro who had just returned.

Down on the ground, the third Incarnation of the Doctor led his allies in the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (otherwise known as UNIT) toward the forces led by Cobra Commander. Though Captain Mike Yates had been quickly wounded by Cobra Commander, Sergeant Benton managed to tackle the slippery commander, and they began a slug fest with each other. The Doctor found himself too busy to respond as he was using Venusian karate against Destro. The rest of the UNIT troops faced off against the Cobra troops plus the occasional Borg drone that got in the way. Jamie struggled against Major Bludd, but while Major Bludd fought viciously, Jamie was used to life and death fights, which proved to give him an edge.

Captain Dylan Hunt led his people per the instructions of the first Incarnation of the Doctor, who was staying in the TARDIS in order to keep it safe from intruders. They raced out and engaged Shredder's ninja forces. At their side came another unusual group came another group that the Doctor had brought along which seemed rather unorthodoxed.

The Blue Raja threw forks with precise aim at the hands of surprised ninja fighters. He even used a fork to deflect a shuriken aimed at his rampaging partner, Mr. Furious, who closed in to fight hand to hand against the ninjas who no longer had swords in their hands.

The Shoveller was matching his trusty shovel against one of the ninjas swords and proving to be a match for his bewildered opponent. Beka Valentine shot a ninja that was coming up behind the Shoveller and then moved to find more of the elusive targets.

Bebop, a man that had been mutated into being part warthog, raised one of Krang's futuristic guns they had stashed and began to scatter the opposition. Rocksteady, who resembled a rhino, followed his friend's example and grabbed a similar weapon

The two mutates, backed by the Foot clan, pushed the heroic forces back. Bebop found himself standing over the cowering and unarmed figures of the very visible Invisible Boy and the Spleen. Bebop laughed at their fear. In the act of cowering, the Spleen turned around, bent over, and adjusted his hips and ankles. "Pull my finger," he whispered to the Invisible Boy.

The response was staggering and very audible. Even a few of the attacking drones stopped to monitor the event. The effects on Bebop was daunting. The wind had blown back the bristles on Bebop's face until they went limp; even his tusks seemed to droop.

Rocksteady called to him but Bebop stood still until a passing fly landed on one of his tusks and he fell over. "Bebop!" Rocksteady charged over to his friend. He lifted Bebop's head but the listless eyes that looked back at his were glazed. "Ah, Man! He had his mouth open during it, too!"

Roaring, Rocksteady jumped up and pointed his weapon at the two cowering heroes. "Any last words?"

The Spleen looked to the right, but the Bowler was busy knocking over a bunch of drones that had broken through to them. Captain Dillon was trying to help by bashing two drone heads together. Mr. Furious had pick up some numchucks from one of his fallen opponents and was using them against a ninja armed with a sword.

Looking to his left, the Spleen could see the Blue Raja on his hands and knees, desperately trying to kick up some of his silverware hardware that had spilled onto the ground. Seamus Harper, of the Andromeda team, had evidently tried to use his neural interface to connect with one of the fallen drones. Trance Gemini and Rhade were trying to disconnect him but he was resisting them because the Borg had overcome him through the link.

"Um, help?" asked the Spleen, pulling the Invisible Kid close, in fear.

Just then something they couldn't see yet still sense seemed to move through the air. The result was the very large and futuristic gun that Rocksteady held was suddenly cut in half. Gulping, the mutate dropped what remained of the weapon and ran to retreat.

The Sphinx, whose power was that he could cut guns in half with his mind, helped them to their feet.

"What took you so long!" complained the Spleen.

The Sphinx shook his head. "I stopped to help the UNIT out. Those Cobra troops they are facing had a lot of guns."

"Emphasis on '_had_', right?" asked the Invisible Kid with a grin.

The Sphinx nodded, returning a rare grin of his own.

Zandor of the Herculoids and king of the land of Amzot on the planet Quasar, kept his wife, Tarra, and their son, Dorno, close while he instructed the magnificent alien creatures they had adopted into their family on the planet Quasar. It was only due to their friendship of the Doctor and the many life debts that they owed him that he agreed to bring his extended family to this strange place to fight. Zok, a large flying Space Dragon that emitted laser beams from his eyes and tail flew up and after a panicked Starscream. Igoo, a large twelve foot tall rock ape, rushed to trade blows with the Solomon Grundy. Tundro, a ceratopsian dinosaur but with ten legs, shot explosive energy rocks out of the largest of the four horns on his head caused disruption wherever he ran or shot. The large armor plates protected him from any retaliated attacks. Gloop and Gleep, two sentient protoplasmic creatures that can shape change into simple but not complex shapes, were about to move off into the battle when Zandor called them back. "Gloop, you will come with me. Gleep, I need you two to stay here and guard Tarra and Dorno. Make sure no one enters the TARDIS except those that had just left with us." Dorno wanted to argue about it but a stern look from his father settled it. The two yellowish protoplasmic balls gurgled in compliance, and Zandor moved into the fighting with Gloop sloshing after him.

Zandor hurried out to the battlefield carrying a shield and armed with a primitive slingshot, which was made all the more formidable by the explosive energy rocks that Tundro produced, which he used for ammo. His first shot stunned the Hunter from the Legion of Super-Villains. His second shot went through the immaterial Shadow Thief and struck against Brainiac's force field. Zandor looked for more targets that he actually could bring down and chose Tri-Klops, who had just knocked Tundro over onto his side with an eyeblast. The energy rock that landed at the feet of the minion of Skeletor blasted Tri-Klops back into some of the robotic Horde Troopers, leaving them temporarily stunned.

Igoo landed nearby, having been thrown there by the mighty Solomon Grundy, whose strength Igoo had misjudged. Zandor caught the stone simian's attention, and got him to get Tundro onto his feet. Tundro responded to this by blasting back the oncoming Solomon Grundy. Igoo, meanwhile, found himself attacked by Moltar, who had already had part of his metal containment suit torn off revealing his lava-like form. The two embraced each other in battle while Zondar was attacked by more of the robotic Horde Troopers.

More fighting was going on near the TARDIS. Thundarr the Barbarian, wearing a furry bearskin vest, used his sun sword against power sword of Skeletor. Both combatants tried to get the other while ignoring the blasts, cries of pain and virtual mayhem that went on around them.

"Foul sorcerer!" yelled Thundarr. "I will crush your skullish visage beneath my feet!"

Skeletor tried to throw a simple crippling spell with his free hand but Thundarr parried it with his sun sword. "You primitive barbarian! You will not live long enough to rue the day you tried to match me in battle!" They closed again to battle; neither giving an inch as they fought. Skeletor quickly determined that Thundarr was no where near as his old foe, He-Man; however, this barbarian showed more lethal intent and savage tenacity than Skeletor had faced in a long time. The fight would prove to be a close one.

Princess Ariel, an ally and companion of Thundarr's, found her evil counterpart in Evil-Lyn. Both women used mystical powers that the other was unused to, and therefore both found it harder to counteract or shield themselves from the effects. Each woman had unusual burns on various parts of their body due to heat, cold, electricity, acid and in some cases a greenish slime.

Ookla the Mok, was a tall, formidable looking sentient humanoid lion-like creature with yellow, pupil-less eyes and fangs, also a ally and companion of Thundarr's, found himself attacked by Beast Man, Skeletor's most loyal stooge. They rolled on the ground as they tried to tear each other apart. Ookla finally got the advantage and trapped Beast Man's arms to his chest. Using all his strength Ookla tried to squeeze the evil feral foe and break his back. Beast Man retaliated by bringing his head in close in order to try bite through the thick mane of hair in order to tear out his opponent's throat.

The purple furred Panthor, the feline steed of Skeletor, leapt onto the geletous Gloop, who had been moving to aid Ookla. Instead of crushing his prey, Panthor found himself immersed in the creature. Gathering his strength, Panthor shook with all his feline might, causing Gloop's liquidy form to break apart and scatter all around. It proved to only by a momentary victory because as Panthor was considering on whether or not to go to Skeletor's aid, the little drops of Gloop began to roll and bounce toward each other to reform. Panthor hissed in annoyance. This was going to take longer than he thought.

Jamie McCrimmon held up his hands along side his friend, the time-lord known as the Doctor, who he had just recently learned had been resurrected from another body that had been known as the Doctor. And all the other people who had just meet, also called the Doctor, were resurrected from the Doctor that he knew and traveled with. But he couldn't really think about that or even ask about it since a man that was horribly scarred on the left side of his face was pointing a gun at them.

Two-Face a.k.a. Harvey Dent was in turmoil. He had two of the enemy right in front of him but his two-headed silver dollar was missing. He figured that he must have lost it in the scuffle when everyone was trying to get into place for battle. Then he remembered the Joker bumping into him. "The Joker! The damn clown took my silver dollar! He did it for a laugh! Now how do I choose? Do I just kill you fools or do I let you go?"

"I'm for letting us go," commented Jamie, who, from his travels with the Doctor, realized just how much damage the gun in Two-Face's hand could inflict.

"From what you said," surmised the Doctor, "you make many of your more critical choices with the flip of a coin, yes."

Two-Face hesitated. "What about it? You mock me and I'll just plug you for spite."

"Nonono. You misunderstand me. I have a coin right here in my pocket." He moved very slowly as he slip his hand into his pocket. Two-Face, already angry over the Joker's trick, trained the gun directly at the Doctor's head. The time-lord retrieved a large silverfish coin out of his pocket. "Okay, heads you let us go, tails you get to shoot us."

"Doctor?" The Scot nervously clutched at his friend's sleeve. Someone had just thrown Mr. Impossible past them, but neither Two-Face nor the Doctor gave it more than a casual glance.

"Never fear, Jamie." He flipped the coin.

Two-Face's hand flew out and grabbed it in midair. Immediately, he checked it to see it's judgment. "Well, what do you know? It's head's."

The Doctor nodded. "We'll be off then." He grabbed Jamie's arm and started to pull him away. He whispered over to his companion. "When I say run, run."

Two-Face was inspecting the coin which was not earthly in nature or design. "Hey! This coin has two heads!"

"Run!" shouted the time-lord. Both men took off at top speed.

Behind them, Two-Face tried scarring one of the sides of the coin, but the strange metal proved to be too durable. Frustrated, the facially scarred villain turned to just shoot them. Fortunately for them, Frozone was passing by to face off against the Minister Blizzard, and he froze Two-Face into an ice statue.

The stunned Catman's eyes rolled listlessly as Shalimar Fox, of the team Mutant X, stood over her first fallen foe. The Floronic Man and Rag Doll moved to engage her but they were stopped as a whip cracked loudly in the air.

"She's mine, boys." The Catwoman flexed back her cat-o-nine tails whip and smiled menacingly. She raised her free hand in cat fashion, revealing her razor sharp claws on her hand. She hissed angrily.

Something in Shalimar Fox snapped. Instinctively, she charged the feline intruder intending to show her exactly who the dominate one was here. The cat-fight was not going to be pretty. The Floronic Man looked elsewhere for someone to fight, but the Rag Doll stayed to watch the catfight with sadistic glee.

Within a few yards, the Cavalier charged Brennan Mulwray expecting him to be an easy target. Instead, Brennan held out his hand and fired a stream of intense electricity straight into the metal rapier weapon in the Cavalier's hand.

Brennan started his next buildup of electricity as he moved to the next opponent. A mean, evil redhead stepped into his way wearing purpleish-grey prison outfit. Strapped across his chest was some type of machine that looked like it was jury-rigged together. "I'm Luthor. Alexei Luthor."

Brennan hesitated. Not because he was unsure that before him was one of the bad guys, but because of the remarkable resemblance that man had to Adam Kane, the founder of Mutant X, and probably one of the most intelligent men in the world. His hesitation over, he concentrated on another burst of electricity that he liked to call his Tesla coils.

The machine carried by the Earth-2 Luthor absorbed the electricity and sent it back at almost doubled the voltage. Brennan was caught off guard but managed to reabsorb the abundant electricity and fire it again. Luthor returned it again and again, grinning broader and broader as Brennan's predicament started to become aware to the young man.

Feeling himself starting to burn out, in a feat of desperation he managed to absorb to massive amount of electricity in his left arm while firing up into the air with his right in order to break the fatal loop, accidentally killing some of the few remaining drone rockets flying above them. With the last wisps of excess electricity in his body, he fired it at the ground in front of Alexei Luthor causing it to explode in front of him and blast him backwards, the machine that he carried providing an accidental protection from some lethal rocks that imbedded in it. Brennan fell over, too, as his powers had extended themselves farther than he could handle.

Jesse Kilmartin, another of the New Mutants of Mutant X saw his friend's struggle but had a big problem of his own. Jesse's ability to alter his density was getting a workout as he went up against the super strong and near invulnerable Ibac, one of the foes of Captain Marvel. When Ibac swung at him or tried to grab him Jesse would lower his density to the point that Ibac's fists passed through him without harm. When Jesse could, he would make himself more dense and strike as hard as he could, but since he was denser, it also slowed his body down so that he did little to no damage to the ugly Ibac.

Frustrated, Ibac roared with all the anger of the evil figures that empowered him from hell itself. **I**van the Terrible supplied the terror that he spread; Cesare **B**orgia supplied Ibac with evil cunning; **A**ttila the Hun gave him his fierceness; **C**aligula provided the cruelty that drove Ibac on. But even with all these abilities he couldn't seem to harm the young man that mocked him. Jesse egged him on, figuring that if they couldn't beat each other, he could at least keep this lethal terror busy until someone on his side had a free moment to do it themselves.

The Shade was a remarkably thin and tall man, looking even more so due to the stovepipe hat he wore making him look even taller and skinnier. He sized up the young lady before him. "My, you look like a sweet little treat."

Lexa Pierce prepared herself for her first contact in this strange place. "Looks can be deceiving." She concentrated on the power that was hers due to people messing with her genetic structure. Light bent around her and lasers fired from her eyes.

Darkness flowed out of the Shade's cane to form a shield in front of him. "My dear young lady, you can't expect to face up to the troubles in the world by glaring daggers at everything. Someone might respond with something much more deadly." The inky blackness poured out of the Shade's cane and enveloped Lexa before she could do anything.

Lexa found that she couldn't see or feel anything. She could no longer hear the sounds of fighting going on around her either but somehow the Shade's voice pierced the darkness. "Now, my dear, let us see you shine."

She started to panic but remembered her practice drills. She tried to fire another laser but couldn't. She could bend light, even to the point that she could appear invisible, but there was no light here. Yet, she just knew that the Shade could see through the darkness. She had to try something so she tried bending the darkness around her to try make herself invisible.

The Shade blinked. She was gone. "What? How? Was she a teleporter? Oh well." He turned and moved to find another target leaving the darkness to dissipate behind him.

Lexa remained invisible, terrified at what she had experience. She watched him as he walked nonchalantly away, once forming a wall to block the charging Tundro, but otherwise only concerned about finding another interesting target to concentrate his efforts on.

The three red dots that appeared on his back in the pattern of a triangle surprised her. What almost shocked her back to visibility was when his chest seemed to explode.

No one else seemed to notice or care as they were in life and death battles of their own already. What shocked her was the large muscular humanoid figure that leaped in from somewhere. No one seemed to notice him either. That was when she realized that he was invisible, too. He had a mask on that may have been a breathing mask. On the back of it's head were a series of tube-like hair that almost resembled dreadlocks. He picked up the cane, regarded it for a moment before strapping it to his belt. Then he grabbed hold of the head and tore it off the body, including the spine.

Lexa gasped and looked around to see if there was anyone to help, but instead saw two more of the invisible-shielded aliens looking around for possible targets. She hoped that they were allies that the Doctors' had failed to tell them about, but it just didn't ring true to her.

Then she saw a mounted gun rise up and aim from where it was mounted on one of the two formidable aliens shoulder. It fired. Lexa turned. Tundro, the massive alien creature that resembled a mutated cross between a rhino and an armadillo, had been hit in it's hindquarters. It's rear armor plates had either been blown off completely or smoldered horrible. Tundro let out a horrible cry and tried to run but only the front four of his ten legs seemed to work. Another blast hit him in the front shoulder, stunning the poor creature. Another blast ended the battle for Tundro.

Lexa ran to the TARDIS. She had to tell the Doctor that there was something else on the field. Something that wanted to kill all the fighters.

When Xander was prepared himself for this fight, he had thought of all the events that had transpired when he had originally traveled with Buffy and Spike to a Star Wars universe that was just like the movies he had watched in his own universe. In the deep lower sections of the city-world of Coruscant, they worked to stop the Borg there. While trying not to get assimilated by the Borg or shot by Stormtroopers, he had stumbled across an old abandoned interrogation room/torture chamber, which also included a number of weapon trophies taken from prisoners. He had managed to survive the encounter, which was more than Spike was able to do, and bring back a number of the weapons he had found back home, one of which included a lightsaber.

As much as Xander had wanted to use the lightsaber in their weekly battles against evil, he was fairly inept with it. He proved just how dangerous he could be when he had cut off a good chunk of Buffy's hair when he tried to help by decapitating a chaos demon.

True, he could have given Buffy the lightsaber to lose but he couldn't bare the thought of being apart from it. So he found another option.

After bugging Willow for weeks after swearing her to secrecy, he finally got her to research the Janus spell Ethan Ryan had used to turn people into the characters they were dressed up one Halloween. Xander had dressed as a Jedi and, once the spell was cast, he'd turned into a Jedi master named Freple. Willow explained to Freple what was going on, and showed him a video recording of what had happened to him.

Willow took the Jedi out for a night on the town to show why Xander was trying to do this. They encountered a small group of newbie vampires and a strange giant centipede demon, all of which attacked them and Freple killed. Once they had returned to Xander's basement, Freple worked on meditating on Jedi techniques and restoring the old weapons that Xander had brought back with him from Coruscant. In the end, the bowcaster and dart gun worked, but the dart gun needed a new toxin administered to it for it to be more effective as the old toxin was almost of no use. The Stormtrooper was in fine condition but once it's energy was expired there would be no way to recharge it.

Once the spell ended, Xander had done the meditations that Freple described to him via videotape. To Xander's amazement it had worked better than Xander had believed possible. He practiced Jedi fighting techniques and had a weak connection to the Force. The only bad part of it had been that now he could now sense that the magic Giles and Willow used darkened or tainted their soul each time they used it. That argument had not gone well. In the end, Giles and a very perturbed Willow had promised to use very little or no magic.

The strain of the issue, plus taking a couple of days off, had led to him taking Anya on a trip to Los Angeles, where they had ended up giving Angel a hand against a band of gypsy demons, which included an incubus, a old werewolf, a half Human / half Wyvern, a cowboy zombie and a caterpillar-like dog. It had become a regular thing with helping Angel out and sometimes he could return the favor. But things got a little strained when Buffy started dating Riley Finn.

But they managed to pull everyone together to come here at the Doctor's request. Riley Finn had even managed to bring along some of his Initiative buddies. Angel had brought as many people as he could get a hold of, including Lorne, a repentant Faith and Harmony, who was now a vampire.

Now, because of it all, he found himself facing a strange skull faced man called Hordak – lightsaber to power sword. Xander had already taken out a number of the robotic Horde Troopers. Gunn, Wesley and Finn were facing the rest of the Troopers. Cordelia and Lorne were trying to provide medical help to some of the wounded from the Initiative. Willow, trilled at have an excuse to use magic, was paired off with the wicked looking Shadow Weaver.

A problem arose when Giles had gotten himself entangled in the life-sucking embrace of Octavia, whose tentacles were all over him. Faith tried to run over to free him but was intercepted by a small red lizard-like man named Tung Lashor, whose tongue had actually extended five feet and wrapped itself around her legs.

"Oh eww! There goes that fantasy!" Faith twisted and tried to get free or at least near Tung Lashor but his tongue was just too strong. She then pulled out the very wicked looking knife that Mayor Richard Wilkins had given her. Tung Lashor retracted his tongue so fast it actually his face. Faith didn't waste time with the comical sidekick but moved with all haste toward Octavia and Giles.

Meanwhile, while sparring with Hordak, Xander managed to dodge death yet again as the evil overlord threw a small poisoned dart at him.

"Your skill is impressive," said Hordak. "Even now I would spare you if you would turn and serve me."

"Sorry. Already saw that movie and the prequel. I also checked out the bonus features and got these cool movie props."

They fought with renewed vigor. For all of Xander's newfound abilities, Hordak had more experience and powers that were unknown to Xander.

Suddenly, warned by the Force, Xander flipped back out of the way as something flashed through the air. Glancing back, Xander was surprised to see Hordak's head fall to the ground followed by his body.

"Finn! Get down!" he shouted. Finn reacted immediately, receiving a serious gash on his shoulder, but the Horde Trooper he was facing had been cut in half.

As the large frisbee-like blade returned, Xander lashed out with his lightsaber destroying the flying weapon. He looked around to see who had thrown it. Was it an ally? Or maybe an enemy of Hordak's lashing out in the confusion of battle to do something they wouldn't dare do in a fair fight? Or maybe a simple mistake of a weapon flying out of control? He didn't see anyone that looked like they were responsible, but it was hard to tell with all the fighting going on.

Warned by the Force again, Xander threw himself to the side as something came crashing down where he had been standing. Looking back, Xander saw what appeared to be a man riding a white winged horse. The obvious cause of death had been a long metal spear that went up through the abdomen of the horse and through the man sitting in it's saddle. Terra-Man had ridden through the skies for the last time.

"Geez, Xander," said Faith. "What happened to the flying cowboy?" She placed the barely alert Giles down on the ground.

"Just the obvious as far as I can tell." He looked at the sphere. "It's pretty technical. How are you doing, Faith?"

"I'm five by five, more than I can say for Giles here. Or that octopus lady I just cut to pieces."

Xander pulled his dart gun, which the darts had been dipped in the paralyzing ooze of demonic worm, and shot Shadow Weaver in the neck, so that Willow could be free to answer so questions for him. But one thing he knew for certain. Whoever had impaled the man and horse, not only had a good arm and aim, but had been on the ground with them.

The Doctor, the eightieth incarnation, hurried over. "Is that what I think it is?"

Faith shrugged. "I guess that depends on what you think it is?"

The Doctor looked concerned. "Oh, this may be a problem."

Willow came over looking irked at Xander for interfering with her fight with Shadow Weaver. "Does the problem have a name?"

"They are called the Yautja, but most people, never having a chance to learn the name of the species, just call them the Hunters or Predators."

"What do they hunt?" asked Xander, although he was pretty sure he already knew the answer.

The Doctor looked around. "The most dangerous game they can find. And right now I'm afraid that means us."

**AUTHOR'S NOTES**

_The huge influx of heroes pushing a path through the villains to the Borg were all heroes that had faced the Borg in previous parts of my story._

_Yes I know Violet was never called the Invisible Girl in the movie. By the end of the movie, THE INCREDIBLES, they had never gotten around to giving her a superhero code name. But this is after the movie and I think they would have done that by now._

_I mentioned Alexei Luthor's resemblance to the Adam Kane of Mutant X because the actor that played Adam Kane, John Shea, also played Lex Luthor in LOIS & CLARK: THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN (1993 – 1997). Therefore, since the Earth-2 comic book version of Luthor had red hair and was not bald like his Earth-1 counterpart, I figure he should have a strong resemblance to Adam Kane._

_As for Xander, Buffy and Spike going to Coruscant and Xander getting his hands on a lightsaber, that happened in A TANGLED WEB Part 2: WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE ON YOUR CORUSCANT?. If you don't remember it, go check it out. I personally love the scene with Buffy and Quark._

_Of course the sudden attacks on Xander, Hordak, Shade and Tundro were by the Predators. There will be more surprises coming._

_Also there are more people in the Doctors army that you will be introduced to in my next posting. Please send a review. Thank you. And I hope you enjoyed the story._

**DOCTOR WHO**

_1__st__ Doctor_

Susan Foreman – (Carole Ann Ford)

Ian Chesterton – (William Russell)

Barbara Wright – (Jacqueline Hill)

_2__nd__ Doctor_

James (Jamie) Robert McCrimmon – (Frazer Hines)

_3__rd__ Doctor_

Dr. Liz Shaw – (Caroline John)

Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart – (Nicholas Courtney)

Captain Mike Yates – (Richard Franklin)

Sergeant Benton – (John Levene)

Sarah Jane Smith – (Elizabeth Sladen)

_5__th__ Doctor_

Tegan Jovanka – (Janet Fielding)

Nyssa of Traken – (Sarah Sutton)

_6__th__ Doctor_

Melanie 'Mel' Bush – (Bonnie Langford)

_8__th__ Doctor_

Dr. Grace Holloway – (Daphne Ashbrook)

_9__th__ Doctor_

Rose Tyler – (Billie Piper)

_10__th__ Doctor_

Martha Jones – (Freema Agyeman)

**INCREDIBLES (2004)**

Mr. Incredible/Bob Parr – (Craig T. Nelson)

Elastigirl/Helen Parr – (Holly Hunter)

Dash/Dashiell Parr – (Spencer Fox)

Invisible Girl/Violet Parr – (Sarah Vowell)

Frozone/Lucius Best – (Samuel L. Jackson)

**VOLTRON: DEFENDER OF THE UNIVERSE (1984 - ?)**

Commander Keith Akira Kogane

Lance Charles McClain

Darrell "Pidge" Stoker

Princess Allura

Tsuyoshi "Hunk" Garett

King Zarkon – (mentioned only)

Prince Lotor – (mentioned only)

**ANDROMEDA (2000 – 2005)**

Captain Dylan Hunt – (Kevin Sorbo)

Beka Valentine – (Lisa Ryder)

Seamus Harper – (Gordon Michael Woolvett)

Trance Gemini – (Laura Bertram)

Telemachus Rhade – (Steve Bacic)

Rommie - (Lexa Doig)

Doyle – (Brandy Ledford)

**MYSTERY MEN (1999)**

The Blue Raja – (Hank Azaria)  
Mr. Furious – (Ben Stiller)  
The Shoveller – (William H. Macy)  
The Bowler – (Janeane Garofalo)  
The Spleen – (Paul Reubens)  
The Invisible Boy – (Kel Mitchell)  
The Sphinx – (Wes Studi)

**THE HERCULOIDS (1967 – 1969)**

Zandor (Mike Road)

Tarra (Virginia Gregg)

Dorno (Ted Eccles)

Zok

Igoo

Tundro

Gloop

Gleep

**THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN (1980 – 1984)**

Thundarr

Princess Ariel

Ookla the Mok

**HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE (1983 – 1985)**

He-Man – (Mentioned only)

**MUTANT X (2001 – 2004)**

Adam Kane – (John Shea) (Mentioned only)

Shalimar Fox – (Victoria Pratt)

Brennan Mulwray – (Victor Webster)

Jesse Kilmartin – (Forbes March)

Lexa Pierce – (Karen Cliché)

**ANGEL (1999 – 2004)**

Angel – (David Boreanaz)

Wesley Wyndam-Pryce – (Alexis Denisof)

Charles Gunn – (J. August Richards)  
Lorne – (Andy Hallett)  
Winifred 'Fred' Burkle – (Amy Acker)

**BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (1997 – 2003)**

Ethan Ryan – (Robin Sachs) (mentioned only)

Cordelia Chase – (Charisma Carpenter)

Harmony Kendall – (Mercedes McNab)

Riley Finn – (Marc Blucas)

Faith – (Eliza Dushku)

Mayor Richard Wilkins – (Harry Groener) (mentioned only)


	22. Chapter 22

A Tangled Web Part 8

**A Tangled Web Part 8.22**

**By Charlie Nelson**

Inside the walls of the TARDIS, Elastigirl had her arms wrapped tightly around her daughter's waist. "You are not going out there again, young lady! It's just too dangerous!"

Violet Parr, otherwise known as Invisible Girl, sighed dramatically. "Moooom! I'm a superhero now. Just like you and dad. Besides, of all of us, I have the best chance of actually catching that speed freak that's chasing after Dash."

"No, you don't. Marsha's boyfriend is going to do that," stated Elastigirl. "After all, he's a speedster, too." Her head elastically turned completely around to look at Marsha.

"If he ever comes back from the bathroom," said Marsha. "I can't understand what is taking him so long."

"Times like this I'm glad I can just go just about anywhere," said Frank the Pug, who had been left behind by Agents K and J for 'communication support'. The annoyed look he got from the first Doctor, who was checking some of the valves, made him nervous. "Not that I would do that in here." He snuggled closer into Susan's lap.

The door to the bathroom opened, but the person who stepped out from it was not who they expected. Tucker Williams, otherwise known as Mega Boy at where he studied at the military funded Academy for Superheroes, adjusted his belt before looking up. "Did you know that the Doctor calls the bathroom the 'loo'?" he said. At their stares continued, Tucker began to feel uncomfortable. "Did I leave my fly down again?"

"What? No!" Marsha shook her head to stay in task. "We thought Zoom was in there?"

"No," said Tucker. "Jack knocked on the door earlier, but I told him I was going to be awhile and that he might want to find another bathroom - I mean loo - to use."

Cindy Collins, a very young blonde girl who had chosen Princess as her superhero codename, waved her hand in front of her nose. "But what do I do know? I have to go number one and you made it all stinky in there."

Elastigirl and Marsha looked down the long corridor that led deeper into the TARDIS.

"You don't suppose he went down there?"

The first Doctor looked up from his view screen at the console. "Are you suggesting that your friend is wandered about inside my TARDIS after I especially warned everyone not to do that very thing?" The older looking, gruff Doctor moved to another part of the console and began checking for signs of another presence while Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, two of his companions, took over observations. "I should have realized that some of you wouldn't heed my warnings."

Marsha shrugged. "Oh, he probably got turned around. But with his super speed he should find us in no time. After all, how big could it be in here?"

The Doctor gave her a cold but frustrated glare. "My dear lady, I'll have you know that the inside of the TARDIS is roughly the size of a small planet. Not just the surface, mind you, but the entire dimension of the space that a planet would fill."

"Grandfather." Susan stepped over and took a hold of his sleeve. "Isn't there anything you can do?"

The frustrated Doctor considered. "We'll have to try find him later. Our priorities have to be helping our side who are battling for their lives against the Master's troops and the Borg."

"We should go out there and help them!" said Mega Boy. Both of his fists expanded to five times their normal size as he slammed them together.

A number of the kids from the superhero training school Sky High, who had come along with their teachers for a class field trip, agreed.

"We could give a lot of help," said Will Stronghold, the son of the Commander and Jetstream, two of his worlds most popular heroes who were already out fighting outside. "We could help end this fight before anyone else gets hurt." Layla, Will's girlfriend, simply nodded in agreement.

Mr. Boy, who had once been known as the All-American Boy, former partner to the Commander, and trainer of the Hero Support group, hurried over to Marsha and Elastigirl.

"I thought you were watching the door with Tarra," said Marsha.

Gasping, Mr. Boy managed to speak. "Warren Peace and Concussion rushed by us." They could see that he was starting to have a black eye for his trouble of trying to keep his charges in a safe place.

"That does it." Marsha turned to the corridor. Taking a deep breath, she began to whistle, which the sound was augmented greatly by her super blowing powers.

The TARDIS began to shake due to the stress of the sound and wind and a few alarms sounded on the Doctor's console. Suddenly, a figure seemed to appear far in the hall straining to come forward but was rebuffed by the wind and sound.

Marsha stopped whistling and Zoom rushed forward at superhuman speed. "You would not believe how big this place is! It might have taken me a week to find this place again if I hadn't been able to home in on your whistling."

"Later," she said. "Right now Elastigirl's boy, Dash, is being chased around outside by some super fast bad guy."

"Right, rescue time it is then." He gave her a quick peck on the cheek and was gone out the door of the TARDIS in search of Dash and his antagonist, Johnny Quick.

"Oh dear!" said Susan. She held the stunned form of Frank the Pug delicately in her lap. His tongue hung piteously out of his mouth. "I think your whistling stunned him."

"Oh well," said the Doctor with a sly grin. "At least it was for a good cause."

A young teen in a white and neon yellow outfit came up to Mr. Boy. "Mr. Boy, it's time for us to go out there and bust up some of those villains." Zach Braun, who was trying to get people to accept his superhero name as Zach Attack, winked slyly to one of his classmates, Magenta, who rolled her eyes.

The five foot seven inch tall Mr. Boy, frustrated and embarrassed at having been hit and pushed aside by one of his students, was determined to prove himself. "All right. We'll all go outside then."

Zach froze in surprise while Mega Boy, Princess and Will Stronghold whooped for joy. The rest of their classmates were not quite as thrilled. Neither were Marsha Holloway and Elastigirl.

"You can't take those kids out there," began Marsha. "It's too dangerous!"

Mr. Boy was not daunted. "We'll only go out to the perimeter of the fighting. Help one or two hero, maybe bring back some of the wounded, and then come back here."

Elastigirl couldn't believe her ears. "That's not a good enough reason for us to allow children out there."

Mr. Boy noticed that she was using her elastic powers to make herself look taller. "What if we also tried bringing back those under aged fighters that went out anyway. Like your son and your daughter."

"Zoom will bring back Dash," she said. "And Violet is right… Where's Violet?"

Houdini, one of the tall, older teens spoke up. "She made herself invisible and took a walk outside."

"You saw her? And you didn't stop her?"

"What? Am I her mother all of a sudden?"

His girlfriend, Summer Jones, was not at all happy with his attitude and slugged him in the shoulder. "He can make himself invisible, too. See her, too, is my guess. So he'll help bring her back if he knows what's good for him."

Houdini gave her a mock grin, followed by a deep sigh after Summer turned away.

"You may have to act fast," said Susan, who was sitting in front of the monitors. "Some of your friends aren't doing so well out there."

Marsha got to the screen first but Elastigirl stretched her neck so that her head was just above Marsha's. "Who is it?" demanded Marsha.

"A number of people seem to be having problems," said Barbara. "I don't know all of the names. Most of them were very unusual."

On screen, the spectators in the TARDIS could see Mr. Incredible was being held up in the air by a mentally powered villain while the rest tried to break him open like a piñata. The Commander was being overpowered by a young man in a green outfit while his wife, Jetstream, was battling against very old man on a flying platform and a young woman in a gold outfit who appeared to be skating on thin air. Warren Peace, who was still debating superhero names like Pyro and Firestarter, was faced off against a bald cold themed villain. Concussion was taking on a number of figures that appeared to be the tattoos that one of the villains was bringing to life off of his own body.

The Doctor adjusted the controls in frustration. "Confound it. Why did my other selves have to change everything in here? I liked the TARDIS just the way it was. But, no, I allow myself to regenerate into another incarnation of myself and suddenly I'm changing everything. It was much more simple when-" But no one was listening to him as he ranted.

Mr. Boy ground his teeth after seeing his onetime partner, The Commander, being pummeled about by one of the villains. "Let's do this quick," he said in a hard, dangerous tone that made his students do a double take at him.

Elastigirl scanned the screens for any sign of Violet or Dash while returning to the gruesome beating her husband was enduring. "Okay," she said, tensely. "But it's a quick hit the villain, grab the wounded, and run home play."

Marsha, seeing the insistence in her eyes, nodded in agreement. Mr. Boy organized everyone at the door and began issuing a buddy system though half of the teens didn't care.

Susan reached out to tug at her grandfather's sleeve. "Grandfather, I've been looking everywhere on the monitors, but I can't find him."

"Who, dear?"

"The Master. He seems to have disappeared from the battlefield."

Outside on the battlefield, Brainwave held Mr. Incredible in the air by mental telekinesis and kept flipping him around so that he couldn't get his bearings while Superwoman from Earth 3's Crime Syndicate, and Silver Slasher and Titania of the Legion of Super-Villains in the 30th Century, beat on him mercilessly.

_I'm surprised that someone with such an elevated intellect could sink to such barbarism,_ said Mr. Medulla telepathically, who was one of the professors at Sky High.

Brainwave released his hold on Mr. Incredible, letting him drop to the ground where the others jumped on top of him. Seeing Mr. Medulla about fifteen feet away, he noted the grotesquely expanded cranium. _So you wish to duel with me, do you?_ He snarled as he began to lash out mentally only to have it have it rebuffed.

Both mental contestants began to war against each other on another plane. To their perception the physical world seemed to fade away and Brainwave's image seemed to change from that of a tall, athletically built man in a fancy red and blue outfit to a small skinny man with an enlarged bald head which was his true physical form that he usually masked mentally.

Mr. Incredible, meanwhile, now was able to lash out at his tormentors. He kicked Titania away, and grabbed Silver Slasher's hand and thrust her metallic razor sharp fingers into Superwoman's shoulder. Both women screamed in agony as while Silver Slasher's fingers did pierce Superwoman's near impervious shoulder, the impact had also broken her metallic fingers on that hand.

The Persuader rushed in to finish off Mr. Incredible with his atomic axe, but was suddenly being wrapped up by the elastic limbs of Mr. Incredible's wife, Elastigirl.

"I leave you alone for just a few minutes and I find women crawling all over you!" teased Elastigirl.

Mr. Incredible managed to give a sheepish grin even though he was bleeding in a number of places and his back was threatening to seize up on him. "Aw, honey. I-" But before he could complete his sentence, Superwoman struck him again, knocking him head over heels a couple of yards away.

Will Stronghold's goal was to get to get to his father or mother. Seeing the beating his father was taking, Will rushed over only to be suddenly tackled by a very strong, yet surprisingly buxomy, female fatal, Titania.

"Going to help someone, kid?" snarled Titania. "Well, guess what? You're the one who needs help. I'll going to break your scrawny neck!"

Will tried to throw her off even as she tried to crush him. Both were surprised to see that they were about the same strength. "Fine. You're tough. But you got to breathe." She put a choke lock on him.

As she pulled him back to choke him, he found he couldn't look or call to anyone for help. All he could see was straight up. And then he saw his mother. Somehow General Immortus or the Golden Glider had managed to ensnare a rope around her and she was being dragged to Immortus' flying platform.

Improvising, Will used the other power that he had inherited from his parents. He flew. Straight up with a startled Titania still clutching at his throat, he flew even though he starting to see spots due to being oxygen deprived.

"Heights don't scare me." The angry female wrapped her legs around his middle to secure her position. "I can easily survive a fall from here. But you better hope that when you finally do give out that we crash hard enough to embed you in the ground because that's the closest you'll get to a burial. Do you hear me, you stupid pi-"

Aiming right at the flying platform, Will did an abrupt turn so that Titania's back took the brunt of the impact against the energized underbelly. The resulting impact knocked General Immortus over the guardrails and sent him plummeting downward. Golden Glider left from antagonizing the semi-roped Jetstream, and skated like the champion she used to be down to catch the elderly mastermind in order to repay the earlier saving of her hide.

"Hee Hee." General Immortus grinned at her. "I knew you liked me."

She shook her head and then looked for a safe place to land. "Whatever. Just no groping."

"Yes, dear." He grinned leerily at her.

"I see I'm going to have to introduce you to my brother, aren't I?" she said threateningly. "You remember him. The overprotective brother with the very lethal cold gun."

His grin remained. "Do I get to meet the parents, too?"

On the ground, the Commander was getting beaten in a hand to hand fight against the Nemesis Kid, who currently led the Legion of Super-Villains. "I love going against you super strong types. You never know what to do when you come up against someone stronger than you." He grinned an evil knowing grin as the powers that he had adapted his body with the necessary abilities to overcome any one foe that he faced in battle. He gripped the Commander with his left hand and then repeatedly hit him in the face and gut until he fell to his knees.

The Commander coughed and felt an unfamiliar sharp pain in his chest which he figured might be a cracked or possibly a broken rib. With a stunned look on his face, he reached into his slightly bloody mouth and wiggled one of his front teeth back and forth. "Actually, we have trained to fight stronger foes. The key is to improvise." He struck out for a below the belt blow, but the Nemesis Kid caught his arm and twisted it behind the Commander's back. Then he clocked him from behind.

Before the Nemesis Kid could make any more remarks to the barely coherent Commander, he was startled by a yell behind him. Turning to look, he caught a haymaker right fist to the side of his face from the Commander's former sidekick, the All-American Boy. Jonathan Boy didn't stop at one hit either; he tackled the Nemesis Kid to the ground, pinning the futuristic villain beneath him by sitting on his chest and then began raining punches down on his face while screaming at the top of his lungs.

Nemesis Kid was dazed and confused but using his powers, his body adapted the strength needed to overcome the All-American Boy. He grabbed one of Jonathan's arms and began to roll him off of him, but then he felt the Commander grab a hold of his ankle. _No! Not two of them_! His powers, only able to focus on one opponent, faded away, leaving him to his non-powered physical abilities.

Before the Commander could hit him again, Jonathan Boy, once known as the All-American Boy, battered the Nemesis Kid to unconsciousness.

"How…how did you do that?" asked the Commander.

The Commander's former sidekick stared down at the foe who's shirt he was gripping with his left hand while his right hand was still clenched in a shaking fist above the Nemesis Kid's face. "I…I don't know." Neither of them knew how the Nemesis Kid's power worked and they never would. But years later they would look back and laugh together at the memory and healing some old wounds.

Meanwhile, Warren Peace was expending vast amounts of heat aimed at two villains who were countering him with cold-based weapons. At first he had just been going against Mr. Freeze and that had just been fine for him, but then Captain Cold came over to help out.

"We have him on the ropes!" said Captain Cold.

"I had him on my own before you meddled in," responded Mr. Freeze.

Captain Cold just sneered. "Sure you did. Do you want me to just leave you two to fight it out on your own then?"

Mr. Freeze snarled under his glass helmet. "Just shoot at him."

Warren never did understand why people would try to have a conversation during a fight. It just didn't make sense to him. Their cold-based weapons were starting to get the best of him. He had tried to step directly between them so that he could duck out of the way and they could freeze each other, but they evidently knew that maneuver and would move in such a way that that situation couldn't present itself to Warren.

But then something happened that no one could anticipate. Giant Man a.k.a. Ron Wilson was in his fifties, and had previously been the bus driver for Sky High. Even though both of his parents had been super powered super heroes, he had never exhibited any sign of powers until he inadvertently fell into a vat of toxic acid and displayed growing powers less than a month ago. Being new to his powers, the teachers took him along in this venture as part of his training.

For his assignment, Coach Boomer had sent Giant Man to deal with the plastic androids of Garguax. There were about twenty of each of the three designs making almost sixty in all. The androids were humanoid in design. The red androids radiated heat, the silver ones moved fast, while the blue ones were super strong. After he had super sized himself up to eighty feet in height, Giant Man proceeded to stomp the androids into ground.

Garguax thundered in fury that someone would dare to trash his creations. In appearance Garguax was a green skinned humanoid alien, but of such a vast girth that he mostly just reclined in his hover chair. Today he was sitting up and shouting instructions into his handheld control device. "Stop letting him step on you! Destroy him! Crush him! Take the fight to him."

The androids took their cue and began leaping on Giant Man's legs. Ron swatted at the androids, but the red ones flared up. "Ahhhh! Ah geez! They're like fire ants!"

The silver ones climbed the fastest and were causing him more problems as they headed toward his head. The blue ones were tearing holes in Giant Man's costume in order to allow the red heat generating androids access to his bare skin.

"Coach Boomer! What do I do?"

Coach Boomer had some troubles of his own. The musical villain known as the Pied Piper, one of the Flash's foes, was making him dance around like a ballerina to the tunes he was playing. Giant Man's call did snap his attention to what was going on even though he still couldn't control his limbs.

Coach Boomer turned to the Pied Piper while standing on his tiptoes and holding his hands over his head. "KNOCK OFF THE SISSY STUFF!" The powerful meta-human vocal cords blasted the Pied Piper backwards into unconsciousness. He was now free to offer advice to Ron but it was too late. While trying to get the android off of him, Giant Man tripped over the TARDIS.

"Whooooooa!" He thrust his hands out and managed to catch himself somewhat from falling flat. But he had disrupted some of the fighting going on around him.

Warren found himself looking straight up at Ron's head. "Hey, man! Watch it!"

Mr. Freeze had been knocked over with one of the blue androids lying motionless on top of him, causing the front of his glass helmet to be stuck in the ground. Warren quickly heated up the ground around Mr. Freeze's helmet until it fused together, effectively trapping him. He looked for Captain Cold but the rogue couldn't be found. He trembled, partially in relief, since he was physically spent. The heat he generated came from burning the calories in his body and he had used up a good part of them in facing the two cold villains. "Man, I could use a couple of burgers right now."

Zach Braun, who had recently been trying to use 'Zach Attack' for his super hero codename, found himself alone in the midst of all the battles going on around him. While he liked to try talk street tough, much to his friends chagrin, Zach wasn't much of a fighter. For that matter, his super power wasn't all that great either. His sole claim to being able to attend Sky High was his ability to glow in the dark. He could do it in the light but no one would be able to tell that he was glowing. So he had been placed in the Hero Support group along with those others that did not have offensive or defensive powers.

He watched as Marsha Holloway used her super breath to blow away the green vapor-like villain, that he would later learn was called Mist Master. Wonder, who Zach had been introduced to as Summer Jones, was having a mental battle with what seemed like a large headed paraplegic man who was reclining in a floating chair who was named Hector Hammond. Layla, who was not only connected to plant life, but she could control and augment plants at will, was going against the Earth-2 villainess, Thorn, who had giant thorny vines at her command. Near the TARDIS, he could see that the girl he likes, Magenta, had even managed to capture one of the villains in her guinea pig form. Micro Lad struggled weakly between the rodent's teeth as brought him to the entrance of the TARDIS to deposit him in the hands of Dorno of the Herculoids. Clayface struggled to contain Mega Boy who was expanding and decompressing various parts of his body, but what was really annoying the malleable villain was the youth's lack of fear.

The seven year old Cindy Collins, who insisted on the codename 'Princess', was currently using her super strength to bash the large, sentient gorilla, Monsieur Mallah, by using her grip on one of his legs and swinging him up and down on either side of her. The villain called Neutrax, whose power was to neutralize the powers in others, had managed to temporarily remove Principal Powers superhuman abilities just after she had used her comet abilities to take out Sun Emperor. But not having her impressive abilities didn't stop Principal Powers from chasing after Neutrax, who flew away from her in his hover chair.

Zach looked as Sky High's Principal Powers, who was powerless, attacked the bad guy. _Well_, he thought, _if she can do it, then I will too_. "All right, you bad guys! It's time you faced the awesome might of the Zack Attack!"

He was unprepared for the sudden rebuttal off to his left. "Foolish teenage miscreant! I'll burn that tongue right out of your head!" The sneering visage of Dr. Light froze Zach in place even as the villain of light fired his light gun directly at him.

Zach's world became white light upon contact with the beam of super intense light. At first he thought he had been killed, but then Dr. Light fired again and again using different ranges in the light frequency and still with lethal intensity. Then Zach began to understand how his powers actually worked. Before he could only glow when in the dark because he had been absorbing the light from around him. The light from the florescent lights in the classrooms. The sunlight that touched him through the windows of the bus on the way to school. Even the refrigerator light. But he had never been exposed to such a concentrated amount of light.

Dr. Light realized his mistake. He was feeding the teen power. Fortunately, he had devices that absorbed light as well.

Zach snapped out of his revelry that his powers had been improved exponentially just in time to see Dr. Light pulling out some device from his cape. Zach pointed and a beam of light shot out and burned the device in the villain's hand.

Watching Dr. Light drop the device and curse continually brought Zach yet another revelation. "I did it! I beat my first super villain!" He jumped for joy only to discover that he had taken off at near the speed of light flying around and around the Land of the Lost. But then he realized the problem of his situation. He didn't know how to stop.

Concussion, having defeated the Tattooed Man, found another foe in Lightning Lord. Both of the fighters blasted away the others attacks while slowly closing on each other with a very lethal outcome possible. Ethan, one of the Sky High Hero Support group, snuck in behind Lightning Lord crouched low. Lightning Lord, somehow hearing something over the crackle of lightning and the explosions of Concussion's blasts, turned just as Ethan went to tackle his feet. But before the electrical villain could blast him, Ethan used his abilities to turn himself into a liquid puddle. Lightning Lord was caught off guard as the sudden puddle that he was standing in began draining his electrical energies into the ground. This let Concussion land a stunning blow against his opponent.

"Did I ask for any help?" shouted Connor. "No! Because I had everything under control!" As some of the steam cleared, Connor began to realize something was really wrong. Ethan, who's one claim to power was his ability to turn into a puddle, lay still underneath Lightning Lord. He didn't appear to be breathing either. "Ah, crap." He hurried over to get Ethan to first aid in the TARDIS.

Agents K and J of the Men in Black had decided to hold back from fighting the Borg at the Doctor's insistence in order for them to give a hand against the villains that had joined the Master, of which a number were alien. Working alongside the MiB agents were Special Unit 2 officers Det. Nicholas O'Malley, Det. Kate Benson, Captain Richard Page and their coerced ally, Carl the Gnome. Though there was some similarity to the dangers that both were exposed to on their jobs, the differences were in how they approached their jobs; The MiB dealt with law-breaking aliens and keeping the existence of extraterrestrials secret while Special Unit 2 dealt with evolutionary links which resembled mythical monsters that they had to regulate or destroy the more destructive members while also maintaining the illusion of creatures non-existence.

O'Malley saw the unusual form of the fifteen foot tall Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man, who was actually Dr. Sven Larsen, charging toward him was a composite humanoid made of oak, bronze and octopus tentacles. "I don't know if that is a link, an alien, or what, but I'm definitely using the blue ammo on it!" He loaded one of the precision impact blue bullet cartridges into his standard Special Unit weapon and fired. The A-V-M Man saw the threat of the weapon and changed the front part of his body to diamond while reinforcing his legs with those of a brontosaurus and his back with a mighty oak. O'Malley fired, knocking the A-V-M Man back but not out.

Agent J had the alien despot Kanjar Ro in a headlock and was giving him the noogie of a lifetime when he spotted Nick's trouble. "O'Malley! Catch!"

Nick caught the weapon and only managed to get a good look at it when it was in the palm of his hand. "Is this a joke? What is this? A toy?"

"Just use iiiiiit!" Kanjar Ro managed to twist around and trip the MiB agent so that he fell backwards. Agent J's head hit the ground hard but he managed to kick out and keep the alien despot from reaching his weapon on the ground.

Nick fitted the tiny weapon in the palm of his hand. Once he took the safety off it began a weird chirping noise. Having nothing else to do and with the Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man bearing down on him, he aimed it and fired. An explosion of force knocked him back twenty feet in the air where he bounced off of Giant Man's butt. The A-V-M Man, having seen Nick about to fire on him again, converted more of the front part of his body to diamond, while his head took on a starfish shape and the backside of his body became a flexible pine. The blast from the Noisy Cricket weapon struck the diamond part of his body, sending vibrations coursing through his frame leaving cracks. The pine and starfish part of his body were almost completely torn off.

The A-V-M Man swayed back and forth for a moment. Agent J was about to call out 'timber' when suddenly the starfish-pine-diamond humanoid took on mercury-like substance all over his body. It flowed around and then seemed to solidify. "You tried to kill me!" he shouted at Det. O'Malley. His form changed to that of a Tyrannosaurus for the head while his left side of his body became that of a thick, thorny vine and the right side changed to and iron statuesque shape.

Before the A-V-M Man could sink his teeth into O'Malley, Giant Man, towering at sixty feet tall, tackled the villain.

"Now this kind of foe I can deal with!" shouted Giant Man gleefully just before the Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man struck him to the side of his face with iron fist.

"You can have him," said O'Malley.

Coach Boomer stepped up next to him as they watched Giant Man tearing at the thick vines that were wrapping around his throat. "KNOCK HIM OFF BALANCE, THEN GET THE VINES OFF FROM AROUND YOUR THROAT!" he advised.

Nick wiggled a finger into his ear. "You know that you shouldn't use super sonic powers near a normal person without warning them first."

The Sky High coach snorted. "Buck up, man. It's our turn to fight." He pointed to where Garguax's remaining plastic androids were charging toward them. Nick quickly reloaded his weapon with some blue shells while finding time to pull some earplugs out since he was going to be fighting right next to Coach Boomer.

Agent K of MiB, Captain Richard Page of Special Unit 2, and Allan Quatermain were hunched down behind a barricade that had been created earlier by Dr. Alchemy. They were being fired on by Tyr of the Legion of Super-Villains, Signalman, and Owlman of the Crime Syndicate who were behind another barricade. Det. Kate Benson had already been stunned and was lying next to the stunned figure of Tom Sawyer. Carl the Gnome, a pest and sometimes stooge to the Special Unit 2 division, was checking for vital signs on the two stunned people, starting with Kate.

Captain Page barked at the Gnome. "Carl! Leave her shirt on!"

"I was just trying to remove constricting clothing that might interfere with her breathing." He smiled innocently.

"When she wakes up, she may decide to interfere with your breathing."

"Some things are worth the risk."

Captain Page frowned. "And I may decide to try removing your beard by shooting it off."

Carl froze in mid-button. "You know, I think I'll just leave this on her."

Agent K glanced at Captain Page. "You said that Carl's species is near indestructible."

"Pretty much tough as they are annoying. But if you know their weaknesses, then it's only a matter of-"

Kay didn't wait to hear. He reached over and grabbed Carl by the ankles. He swung him up into the air and toward the other barricade. The villains took the bait and began firing at the screaming Gnome falling toward them. He landed amongst the villains and immediately grabbed onto Owlman's knee and began striking and biting for all he was worth.

Agent Kay shot Signalman's weapon from his hand and the villain ran for cover holding his hand only to meet unseen resistance that struck him in the chin.

"That would be Skinner," said Quatermain. "He's the League's invisible man. So try not to shoot in that direction."

"That red alien with the mohawk was the most dangerous of them," said Captain Page. "I think that golden gun is actually mounted on his right arm."

"Unless I miss my guess," said Agent K, "I think that the weapon attached over his arm is actually a sentient machine that is aiming itself."

Tyr, the Tyrrazian, began shooting again and Captain Page's fake hand was blown off before he could duck all the way. "I just bought that hand!"

"It's going to be tough outgunning that guy," said Agent K.

"All you have to do is shoot," responded Quatermain, as he lifted his rifle and fired. Tyr went down with a slug in his shoulder. "And that should be that."

Agent K was not so sure. "Unless the sentient gun can move on it's own accord and attack us." Right after he had said it, the right arm on the Tyrrazian detached itself and fly up to attack them. They scattered.

Meanwhile, Skinner, the invisible man, had evidentially tried to attack Owlman while he was busy with Carl, but Owlman grabbed Carl and began using him as a bat against Skinner.

Mr. Hyde, another member of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, was battling against King Kull from Earth-S, one of the Marvel Family foes. Captain Page jumped behind their raging forms just in time to be missed by Tyr's sentient weapon. The weapon flew after Agent K next, but he bumped into Violet, the Invisible Girl, who formed an invisible barrier over them. After a few frustrated shots at the two, the sentient gun went to seek Allan Quatermain.

Quatermain thought that the sentient weapon would come back after him, so he was ready holding Try before him with a revolver to the alien's ear.

The golden weapon faltered high in the air, unwilling to harm it's host. As it decided what to do a tractor beam gripped it and began pulling it toward some Borg drones far away.

"Well, that takes care of that, I guess," said Quartermain.

"A temporary solution at best," said Kay, who had returned with Violet. "If the Borg absorbed that particular weapon into their arsenal, then they'd all soon have detachable that could fight on after their drone body is incapacitated." He brought out a collapsible rocket launcher and aimed it at the sentient weapon. A second later and Tyr's detachable arm-gun was destroyed.

Kay turned to Violet. "Now what are you doing out here? I thought all you youngsters were supposed to stay in the TARDIS."

"Uh, I'm helping?" she answered.

"Actually, she's not suppose to be out here," said Dylan West who suddenly became visible. "She's also the reason the rest of the younger generation have all been allowed outside. We are supposed to help out one of the good guys who need it and also try bring back any of our wounded. As well as bring her back."

Kay glanced around and could see a lot of the kids fighting their own battles instead of helping anyone. "Take Det. Benson and Sawyer here to the TARDIS, then get your fellow classmates to break off their fights and return to the TARDIS."

Violet's head sunk, but she used her powers to form an invisible platform under the two unconscious people. Dylan sat down on the platform and gave a mock salute. "Right, chief. We are on it."

Meanwhile, Peter Venkman of Ghostbusters fame had managed to catch a ghost, namely the Gentleman Ghost. No one came near to interfere with his capture because while training his proton pack on the ghostly villain left Peter very vulnerable to a rear attack, nobody seemed to want to get near all the dangerous energies Peter seemed willing to throw around.

Egon came to Peter's hails with a ghost trap. "That was an interesting specimen."

"That's one cultured ghost taken down. See any others?" They were reluctant to use the proton packs on living beings, but if push came to shove, or more likely kill or be killed, the bad guys might be fried.

"I got one! I got one!" Ray Stantz called back like he was fisherman with a fish on the line. What actually was caught in the proton stream was a super suited man in a yellow costume with two red 'X' across his chest.

"Whoa! Check out the X's on him. Are you sure he's a ghost?" asked Peter. "There's a lot of people around here with some strange abilities."

Egon held up his EKG meter. "Inconclusive. He registers similar to a ghost but…these other readings…I need to run more tests."

Peter rolled his eyes. "This isn't a lab, Egon. If anything you are going to have to run field tests as you go."

Ray smiled. "Or in this case it's more likely battle field tests."

Egon gave an annoyed look and pushed his glasses up on the ridge of his nose. Peter whistled a cheery tune as he set out the ghost trap.

Something caught Egon's eye, and he raised the wand of his proton pack. "Hold off. I think we have an explanation coming our way."

Running toward them was a man dressed similar to how the snared ghost to Ray's proton stream. He had to dodge around a fight between Agent K and the mantis-like Zorak, plus a struggle by Alexander Dane and Guy Fleegman who were trying to free their fellow Galaxy Quest actor Tommy Webber from the super strong hair tendrils of Entrapta. Winston Zeddmore, one of the Ghostbusters, was trying to pull a man out of one of the ghost traps after he used it on the Mist. Egon was about to investigate what Winston was up to but Peter put a hand on his shoulder.

"Let me guess. The one of them is the evil twin brother, right?" guessed Peter.

Egon did a quick wave of his EKG meter on the approaching man. "More like one of them is the evil astral projection of the other one."

Dr. Simon Ecks, also known as Doctor Double X, ran over all out of breath. "Don't contain him! He needs to go back in me! We might die without each other!"

"Oh," was all Ray could say as he cut the power to his proton pack.

The exhausted astral form of Doctor Double X faulterd as he flew straight into Dr. Ecks.

"Better?" asked Peter.

"Yes, thanks."

"Don't mention it." Peter landed a haymaker right onto the evil doctor's chin, effectively knocking him out.

"Peter." Egon shook his head. "That could have been handled much more diplomatically."

"Egon, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't he one of the bad guys. You know, those guys that are trying to gain power over the good guys by defeating the Borg before us."

"Hey guys, look what I got!" came a shout that caught their attention. Louis Tully was actually their accountant and not a really a Ghostbuster, though he had helped out on occasion in the field. When the Doctor came to call at the Ghostbusters Headquarters, Louis was the first to put on a uniform and proton pack. To say he was enthusiastic was to put it mildly.

They all turned to stare at the creature caught in Tully's proton stream. Validus was a twenty-five foot monstrosity from the 30th century. He was mainly purple with a clear window in his forehead exposing his brain from which mental lightning shot out. His feet each had two claws protruding while his hands had three fingers each.

"I suppose you want to handle this diplomatically?"

"Ah, I…uh." Egon managed to hold out his EKG meter which promptly exploded.

"Don't burn out a lightbulb, Egon. Peter and I prepared for something like this," said Ray, as he searched through the items on his person.

Egon gave him a look of amazement. "You prepared for this?"

"Yeah," said Peter, who unstrapped a ghost trap off of his waist that had green tape shaped into an X on it. "Once we knew that it was the Doctor who needed our help – those body changes of his get me so confused – Ray and I decided we needed a backup plan since he said we were going to be part of an army." He tossed the trap out in front of Louis who was still walking backwards toward them.

Egon gulped as he realized that Validus wasn't actually hurt or stuck in the proton stream of energy that Louis was shooting at him. Instead the lumbering giant was following the proton stream like a little child going after a balloon it was trying to catch. "Guys, whatever you are going to do, do it fast." He fired another proton stream at Validus.

"Fire in the hole!" Peter hit the button that released the ghost trap he had placed in front of Validus.

Up from the ghost trap flowed two ghostly figures. The first was a small lumpy green specter that they called Slimer. The second ethereal form was large and white ectoplasmic entity that had been formed and shaped by their nemesis, Gozar the Gozerian, into the icon form of the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man.

Instead of being intimidated by the new being that was his size, Validus rushed toward Stay-Puff who was roaring threateningly.

"No!" shouted Egon.

"What is it?" asked Ray, who usually wasn't far behind Egon in thought.

"That creature is emitting mental lightning, while Stay-Puff is an ectoplasmic entity."

Ray slapped himself in the forehead. "Uh, oh."

Peter, undaunted turned to Egon and asked, "What does 'uh, oh' mean?"

Louis Tully, having turned off his proton pack, ran to join the other Ghostbusters.

Egon swallowed. "Short version. Mixing the two of them is like throwing a match onto a puddle of gasoline. Only this is a lot more than a puddle."

"Take cover!" shouted Peter. Egon and Peter pulled the frozen Ray back for cover with Louis leading the way.

The resulting explosion knocked almost everyone on the battlefield off their feet. Marshmallow goo was everywhere. Validus stood in the epicenter of where the blast took place and marshmallow covered the front part of his body. His brain made a small spark of electricity before he toppled backwards unconscious.

Ray, Egon and Louis picked themselves up while covered in white marshmallow goo. Peter, who had stepped behind Giant Man's leg had just a few traces of marshmallow on him. "Well, that's a bit of déjà vu for us," said Peter. He watched as the vampires Mina Harker screeched while trying to get the marshmallow goo off.

"What were you thinking?" shouted Egon. "Putting Stay-Puff against a creature like that?"

"We are alive, aren't we? Besides, Stay-Puff should be able to pull himself together in a couple of days."

"That's not the point!"

"Uh, guys?" Ray said in a low tone. "Could you look at this for a minute?"

Both Ray and Louis were staring at the outline of person that was about seven feet tall partially revealed by the marshmallow covering it. As they watched, it's camouflage field failed due to the ectoplasmic material with which it was in contact. Revealed, the Yautja hunter stood over it's most recent kill. It leaned down and ripped the skull and spine from the fresh corpse of the Persuader. After placing the two trophies into his net-like bag, he reached down to also claim the atomic axe

"Why do I have a feeling that he isn't on our side either?" asked Peter.

**AUTHOR'S NOTES**

No one can be more surprised by my use of ZOOM than myself. But it was cute and once I decided to use SKY HIGH the two movies seemed easy to combine together.

In the end credits of SKY HIGH, they showed a clip of things happening to the characters, the one I remember most was the bus driver character in a newspaper headline saying that he had fallen in a vat of toxic acid and gained growing powers.

I thought it would be fun to increase one of the SKY HIGH characters in the battle, So I choose Zach. In the increase / decrease powers thing that is an old comic book ploy that's been used for years.

I'm glad to have been able to use SPECIAL UNIT 2, as I've come to really like that show. Wish they were still making it.

I hope to use GALAXY QUEST and THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN more in the next posting.

I still have more plots to work on so this whole giant battle scene will go on for at least one or more postings. See you next time.

**ZOOM (2006)**

Jack Shepard / Zoom – (Tim Allen)

Marsha Holloway – (Courteney Cox Arquette)

Cindy Collins / Princess –(Ryan Newman)

Dylan West / Houdini – (Michael Cassidy)

Summer Jones / Wonder – (Kate Mara)

Tucker Williams / Mega Boy – (Spencer Breslin)

Connor Shepard / Concussion – (Kevin Zegers)

Dr. Grant – (Chevy Chase)

**SKY HIGH (2005)**

Will Stronghold – (Michael Angarano)  
Steve Stronghold / The Commander – (Kurt Russell)  
Josie Stronghold / Jetstream – (Kelly Preston)

Mr. Jonathan Boy / All-American Boy – (Dave Foley)

Mr. Medulla – (Kevin McDonald) brain power

Layla Williams – (Danielle Panabaker) – plant powers

Warren Peace – (Steven Strait) - Pyrokinetic

Ron Wilson / Giant Man – (Kevin Heffernan) former Bus Driver

Ethan – (Dee Jay Daniels) – turns into puddle  
Magenta – (Kelly Vitz) guinea pig

Zach Braun / Zach Attack – (Nicholas Braun) glow in the dark

Principal Powers – (Lynda Carter) transform to comet

Coach Boomer – (Bruce Campbell) sonic yelling

**SPECIAL UNIT 2 (2001 – 2002)**

Detective Nicholas O'Malley – (Michael Landes)  
Detective Kate Benson – (Alexondra Lee)

Captain Richard Page – (Richard Gant)  
Carl the Gnome – (Danny Woodburn)

Jonathan – (Jonathan Togo)

**GALAXY QUEST (1999)**

Jason Nesmith – (Tim Allen)  
Gwen DeMarco – (Sigourney Weaver)  
Alexander Dane – (Alan Rickman)  
Fred Kwan – (Tony Shalhoub)  
Guy Fleegman – (Sam Rockwell)  
Tommy Webber – (Daryl Mitchell)  
Laliari – (Missi Pyle)

**THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN – (2003)**

Allan Quatermain – (Sean Connery)

Captain Nemo – (Naseeruddin Shah)  
Mina Harker – (Peta Wilson)  
Rodney Skinner (The Invisible Man) – (Tony Curran)  
Tom Sawyer – (Shane West)  
Dr. Henry Jekyll / Edward Hyde – (Jason Flemyng)

**GHOSTBUSTERS (1984)**

Dr. Peter Venkman – (Bill Murray)  
Dr. Raymond Stantz – (Dan Aykroyd)  
Dr. Egon Spengler – (Harold Ramis)

Louis Tully – (Rick Moranis)  
Winston Zeddmore – (Ernie Hudson)

Slimer

Stay-Puff

Gozar the Gozerian (mentioned only)


	23. Chapter 23

Mekanique and Per Degaton try to gain access to TARDIS – come against K-9 and Doctor

ATW 8.23

Starscream flew close behind Soundwave, checking the sky every few seconds for any sign of that space dragon, Zok of the Herculoids, which had been hounding him with a vengeance. The beast had scored a number of hits on the Decepticon's armored frame from the laser beams focused from it's eyes and tail. Finally, the space dragon had been at least temporarily distracted by attacking pterodactyls at one point and then later repelled in pain by the sonic weapons of Soundwave who had come to Starscream's rescue.

Now Soundwave was bringing him away from the fighting to show him something that he had discovered. For his part, Starscream was glad to be away from the battle, as the dangerous energies being thrown around had proved to be dangerous to his kind. In addition to that, with Soundwave choosing to disclose something to him it meant that he had accepted Starscream as the new leader of the Decepticons after the Master had unceremoniously done away with Megatron.

"Well, what is it? What is it I am supposed to see?" demanded Starscream. He knew he had to be quick. It the Master had seen him leaving the battle he might decide to punish him or worse; do away with him like he did Megatron.

For an answer, Soundwave pointed just behind Starscream. The Decepticon turn to regard a Human sized robot walking out of the brush toward him. It had a rifle of some sort in its hands but it did not aim it towards them. Starscream almost attacked it thinking it to be one of the Borg, but it's features were totally very different from that of a Borg drone.

"Who are-"

Suddenly, all of Starscream's joints locked in place. "What is this?" demanded Starscream.

The robot in front of him spoke. "Soundwave has just activated a fail-safe device that I had him implant in many of the Decepticons over the years during routine repairs."

Starscream returned to his original question. "Who are you?"

"Who am I?" demanded the robot. "Do you not recognize your leader? You should since you have been my subservient for so long. Do you truly not see past this small shell I have been forced to take on? No. You never had the imagination it would take. Then know this, Starscream. Before you stands Megatron! And you will serve me once again!"

A look of dismay and confusion crossed Starscream's face. "Megatron was killed by the Master. We all saw it."

The robot claiming to be Megatron came closer causing Starscream to want to move away, but his joints remained frozen.. "And yet I survived. I was fortunate to gain this frame for myself. And now I can revenge myself upon the so-called Master."

"But-but we can't harm him. We have that geas on us that won't allow us to attack him."

The Terminator shell worn by Megatron seemed to smile evilly. "There are other tools that can be used. Ones with wills and minds of their own. Ones that are free to act against the so-called Master."

"But you won't be able to get near him."

The Terminator robot seemed to almost smile. It reached up and opened a panel from one of Starscream's legs. "I will if he cannot recognize me. And for that I will need your body."

"What? No!" A cable came out from the Terminator robot's torso and connected to the circuitry in Decepticon's leg. "Nooooo! Get aw-"

Soundwave monitored the download in progress intently. Starscream was fighting still inside as Megatron purged his rival's programming, but he proved to be no match for the superior Decepticon. His only hope was in evading the superior programming of Megatron. In a matter of moments, Megatron stood victorious and alone in Starscream's body. The shell of the Terminator robot fell away to the ground forgotten.

"Success!" said Starscream's body with Megatron's voice. Soundwave sent the signal to release the joints in Megatron's new body. Megatron moved his new arms and legs to gauge their use. Then he transformed into an F-15 Eagle jet plane and then back into his robot form. "Wonderful!"

From out of the trees came four humanoid appearances. Soundwave moved to attack but Megatron stopped him. "No, Soundwave. These are the weapons I plan to use to kill the so-called Master."

Ro Laren scowled her displeasure. "I prefer the term 'allies' to 'weapons'."

"Your body is a weapon, Ro" pointed out General Martok. "Klingons are taught that from when they are toddlers."

Captain Sisko regarded the two towering Decepticons. He wasn't exactly happy with what had just transpired. "What next?"

Megatron considered. If he didn't need them to kill the Master for him, he would kill Sisko and the others right there. He despised Humans overall, but now was not the time to act on his prejudices. "I could take you to him as a prisoner. Then when he comes to examine you, you take out a hidden weapon and kill him."

Batman a.k.a. Terry McGinnis shook his head at this. "Sorry. Not into the assassination thing. Would he let everyone go if he was being held captive or is he the suicidal type if he thinks he is losing?"

Megatron scowled. He didn't like having his plans dismissed casually by this Human. But he reminded himself that he needed them. At least for now. "He likes his own skin, but he is more fiendish than any being I had ever encountered before."

"You turned into a plane earlier before reverting back into this shape. Does the pilot compartment stay as it is or does it get compacted down?" asked Batman.

"The space stays open," answered Megatron. "What are you getting at?"

"I know," said Sisko. "You want to use him as a Trojan Horse."

"A what?" Ro Laren looked confused.

"An act of sneaking into the enemy camp by hiding in something that the enemy takes or allows in the camp," said General Martok. "An old Earth legend about how the Greeks were able to end their seven year war with the Trojans. One of the better war stories from Earth." He chuckled at Sisko's surprise that he had known the reference.

Megatron considered. "Yes, it could work. But I could only carry one of you."

"Then it should be me," responded Batman. "I have the best chance of capturing the Master."

"No! It should be me!" insisted General Martok. "I wouldn't hesitate to kill him."

Megatron considered the two candidates. General Martok would kill the Master at the first opportunity but he was an older organic being and therefore more prone to be slower and less agile in attacking. Batman, however, was young, very agile and daring. He could most likely get his hands on the Master, but he refused to kill, and might even try to keep anyone else from killing the Master, either. No, he needed the Master dead.

"General Martok, you are the one to come with me." Megatron leapt into the air and transformed back into a F-15 Eagle jet plane and opened the pilot hatch.

General Martok looked at the others and then regarded Ro Laren. "Remember what we have talked about."

She nodded her head in acknowledgement. "Fight well."

He sat into the compartment which wasn't really designed for a full-sized armored Klingon. As the hatch closed on him, Megatron reverted back to his robotic form and Martok let out a series of Klingon curses due to the sudden rearranging of the compartment he was confined within..

"Now we go see the so-called Master!" shouted Megatron. He took off into the air with Soundwave flying after him.

Captain Sisko shook his head and hoped that he would see General Martok again soon. "Well, let's go find the others. I'm sure that Picard and the rest must be getting worried about us."

Shortly after they left the clearing, the Terminator robot slowly sat up from where it had fallen into the deep grass. It frantically scanned it's arms and legs before shouting into the sky. "Megatron! You will pay for this!"

12345

Events in the TARDIS were escalating as new arrivals demanded the attention of the first Doctor, the only one of the Doctor personas to stay behind.

Invisible Girl of the Incredibles and Houdini of the Zoom Team had just brought in the stunned figures of Special Unit 2 Detective Kate Benson and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen member Tom Sawyer via one of Violet's mentally projected invisible platforms.

This activity had interrupted the Doctor's inspection of the prisoner known only as Micro Lad. Determining where he should best use his attention, the time-lord thrust the stirring miniature villain into a small glass container and handed back to the Sky High student codenamed Magenta who had captured him in the first place. Magenta turned an annoyed eye at the villain who was just starting to figure out what had happened to him and handed him over to the curious teen Dorno of the Herculoids who happily showed him to his friend Gleep, a round protoplasmic ball of fluid that stretched two head-like appendages from the main part of its body in order to view the miniature Micro Lad from both sides at once.

Just as the Doctor was about to give a diagnosis, Concussion of the Zoom team entered carrying a young teen over his shoulder. "Doctor!" Barbara Wright pointed to the new arrivals coming through the doorway.

The Doctor's interest was instantly piqued. "Is that boy melting?"

"Melting's his power," explained Concussion as he eased Ethan to the floor so that he wouldn't splatter all over. "It's how Ethan was able to short out a guy by the name of Lightning Lord. The results to himself were not very good though."

"Oh dear," said the Doctor. He brought out a stethoscope from an inner coat pocket and put it on Ethan's chest. "No signs of arrhythmia, though his heart sounds rather sloshy." Suddenly his hand holding the stethoscope to Ethan's chest sunk into the young teen's chest.

"That's normal for him," said Magenta, in annoyance. "His super power is to turn into a puddle."

Concussion nodded in confirmation. "Yeah, he melted off of me twice as I was bringing him over here. I had to wait for him to solidify each time before I could carry him again. Careful, though. He'll stain your clothes."

The Doctor shook his hand over the now very colorful puddle that was Ethan in order to get the liquid off of him. "In my opinion, his body is a state of flux. He should return to normal when he wakes up."

Gleep stretched over to look at the remarkable scene as Ethan's features seemed to melt into a puddle. Gleep gurgled in excitement even as Dorno, his Human companion, tried to calm him down. "Sorry," said Dorno, "he just finds this so exciting. He's never seen a liquid Human before. Do you think it would be alright if he tried to merge with Ethan?"

Before the Doctor could even consider the ramifications of the young protoplasmic being trying to merge with the unconscious liquid Human, a young woman ran into the TARDIS coming to a skidding stop in Ian Chesterton's arms. "There is some kind of killing alien monster out there!" she cried.

Ian looked a little embarrassed with the beautiful young woman in his arms. He glanced helplessly at Barbara who fortunately seemed more interested in the young woman's hysterics.

"Could you perhaps be a little more specific," said Frank the Pug, who was now a MiB operative. "There are a number of us aliens on the battlefield." He pointed to one of the viewscreens where they could see one of the Master's stooges, Zorak, who resembled a giant mantis, facing off against the purple squid-like alien, Lariari, who was defending her Human mate, Fred Kwan, who Zorak had attacked while Fred's feet were stuck in the semi-conscious Clayface's torso.

"The invisible aliens!"

Frank raised an eyebrow as he stood up taller on his front legs. "You're seeing invisible aliens?" He glanced over at the others in the room. "Sounds like she might have a case of battle fatigue to me."

Susan bent down and picked up the canine-like alien. "Be nice, Frank. Let…" She looked at the young woman again. "It's Lexa, right? Of the team Mutant X?"

"Yes," said Lexa Pierce, relieved upon being recognized.

Susan scratched Frank behind the ear to which he responded by kicking one of his hind legs uncontrollably in pleasure. "Let's let Lexa say what she has to say, okay?" she said.

"Oh, yeah, whatever you want," said the dog-like alien. "Just scratch a little to the left, okay?"

"But there really are invisible aliens out there!" insisted Lexa. "You have to believe me!"

Violet of the Incredibles raised her hand. "Oh! Dylan and I saw them! At least it could have been them." She glanced at Dylan. Dylan rolled his eyes skyward. "Dylan?" She wanted him to confirm what they had seen.

He sighed. "We saw something that appeared to be a cloaked being racing and leaping around the battle field. Whatever it was it seemed very formidable and seemed willing to attack anybody."

Ian was skeptical. "If the 'invisible alien' was invisible, then how were any of you able to see it?"

Violet gave Ian an exasperated glance. "Look, we have the ability to turn invisible. Do you really think we can't see other things that are invisible?"

Dylan smirked. "Like that streaking invisible guy from the League of Extraordinary Guys. That guy's a hoot!"

Violet started to blush before she went invisible. Lexa, however, was not fazed. "Wasn't much to see or brag about. But what about those killer invisible--"

A movement at the entryway occurred even as Dorno cried out. "Mother!"

The golden evil gynoid Mekanique stepped into the TARDIS shoving the limp figure of Tarra, Dorno's mother, onto the floor before raising an arm to fire a widespread yellow beam struck Ian Chesterton, Lexa and Concussion knocking them out. Another blast struck Invisible Girl and Houdini's invisible form which became visible as he slumped to the floor.

Frank the Pug leapt off Susan's lap even as she ducked down behind the main console of the TARDIS. Dorno didn't try to run or hide but attacked instead. Drawing back his slingshot, he was about to send an energized rock straight at Mekanique's head when another figure entered the TARDIS and shot the boy in the arm with a gun. Gleep bounced to attack but an energized blast from Mekanique's hand stunned the protoplasmic creature leaving him a steaming ball in the middle of the floor.

Per Degaton, a short redhead in dark clothes with a design that suggested a fascist taste, kept his gun aimed at the elderly Doctor and his two female companions even as he surveyed the marvels of the interior of the TARDIS. "Interesting. And these are the controls, I assume?'

"Yes," answered the female shaped robot. "Although the controls are…unusual, I believe that I can master them after some trial and error."

The wanna-be despot grinned and turned to those prisoners still awake. "Greetings. I am Per Degaton. And my lovely assistant here is my dear Mekanique. This time traveling machine is now ours!"

The Doctor studied them with a cold glare while Susan clung to his sleeve. Barbara had been allowed to go to Dorno to attend to his bleeding arm. "This is a very complex piece of equipment. You can't just expect to steal it like you would a car or horse and buggy."

Degaton beamed maliciously. "No, but if I were to hold a gun to once of your comrade's heads I think you would be much more compliant with whatever information we need to run this machine." For emphasis, he pointed his weapon to Barbara's head.

The Doctor looked very sullen. He'd met these types all too often and he knew that they were quite capable of carrying through their threat. Fortunately, he also knew that most of them liked to brag about their plans. "What do you hope to gain by all this?"

Degaton sneered. He knew he had been baited but he didn't care. He had the gun and thus the control of the situation. "Ultimately, I plan to become dictator of Earth again. First we will wipe out the Justice Society of America – preferably before they were even born so that they can't correct history again. After that, we will conquer various time periods for fighters and superior technology. And finally start some intergalactic wars for the fun of it."

"And?" Mekanique regarded him intently.

"Oh yes," added Degaton. "Before all that, Mekanique and I will go to the far future to rescue and aid her creator, Rotwang, who I hear had a project of genocide that got out of hand."

"And what of the Master?" asked Susan.

"Him? He has his own worries out there. Besides, Degaton was not born to serve under another; I am to be a ruler of nations!"

"Somehow I think that destiny may not come to pass," said a cold voice from the entrance of the TARDIS. There in the doorway stood the Master flanked by his bodyguards - Deadshot, Trapjaw, Storm Shadow and Mantenna.

Per Degaton raised his gun to shoot but Deadshot shot him in the wrist first.

"Kill them!" Degaton shouted to Mekanique as he tried to stop the blood that was pouring out of his wrist.

Mekanique froze for a few nanoseconds to appraise her situation against her primary dictates. Rotwang had programmed her to travel back in time to bring back anyone that had a time machine for Rotwang's time machine could not transport living tissue. Degaton had been a likely candidate and easy to manipulate. Unfortunately, she had also come to have feelings for him. Warring over this decision, her processor came close to short-circuiting and that would have ruined any chance of fulfilling her primary directive – returning with a time machine in order to save Rotwang.

Mekanique raised her hand a fired a lethal blast. Per Degaton was vaporized and her primary function was still possible. She turned to the evil time-lord who was smiling at her. "How may I serve you, Master?"

An explosion outside distracted everyone. Deadshot and Storm Shadow – professional killers – kept their eyes and weapons on the hostages, thus not letting the Doctor escape.

The Master checked the monitors but they all showed a white screen. "Something has happened outside. It's interfering with all of the monitoring system."

In the entryway of the TARDIS, Captain Nazi, another of the Master's guards, staggered in while covered in a white gooey substance. Trapjaw reluctantly caught him before he slipped and fell. "Explosion!" said the Nazi super villain.

"What caused it?" demanded the Master.

Captain Nazi was trying to wipe the white residue off. "Validus! He attacked a giant…marshmallow man. It exploded."

Trapjaw, being from Eternia, blinked in incomprehension. "What's a marshmallow man?"

"Never mind!" snapped the Master. "We are leaving here!"

"Leaving?" asked Deadshot. "What about the Borg and the prize that was promised?"

The Master regarded the Doctor on the other side of the console of the TARDIS. "It was all a red herring as far as I'm concerned and they can all kill themselves. But if our side wins, fine and we will come back and celebrate. But first we are going after the real prize that I want which only this vessel can take us to."

"Why my TARDIS?" asked the Doctor with care. "You have a newer and more powerful vessel than mine."

"True," admitted the evil time-lord. "But your ship was made from the recycled time vessels of the Great Age of Gallifrey. You stole this-"

"I acquired it!" corrected the Doctor. "There was no owner and it was being set to be demolished with all the other time vessels of it's model because it was deemed an antique compared to the newer models."

"Yes," admitted the Master. "And it is the only one of its model to still exist. And it is the only one that can travel back to the Great Age of Gallifrey!"

The Doctor's eyes opened in alarm. "So that's your plan! Well, it won't work! Gallifrey was at it's greatest during the Great Age. And they went to great lengths to ensure that no one could…" He stopped in thought.

"Yes, you have figured it out, haven't you?" The Master turned to Mantenna. "Bind them."

"What is it, grandfather?" asked Susan.

The dazed Doctor managed to find the words to convey some of what his brilliant brain was processing. "This land…this microverse of land…it is connected to the Great Age of Gallifrey. With my TARDIS, which was made from part of the no longer functioning vessels of the Great Age, the Master expects to be able to travel there and…and I don't know what. Steal equipment…possibly rule Gallifrey during the Great Age. For all I know he may be the cause of the end of the Great Age. I don't know. But I do know he must be stopped."

From around the corner and down the hall that led to the interior of the TARDIS, Frank the Pug watched as Mantenna tied the Doctor's hands behind his back. "What a revolting development."

"Yeah, but what are we going to do about it?" said a voice behind him causing him to jump. Looking back he saw a guinea pig with purple stripes on the top of its head regarding him.

"Who are you?" he said in a hushed tone.

"I'm Magenta. Remember, the girl who brought in the inch tall villain so that he wouldn't get stepped on."

"You were a lot taller then," said Frank. They backed into a side room so that they wouldn't be seen.

"So what do we do?" she asked again.

He regarded her and found her to be quite attractive in this form. "Well, we could always try find the center of this place, make a lot of babies and then come back when we have an army of our own."

"You're not my type," she said sarcastically. "Just because I'm into Gothic things does not make me kinky."

"Just kidding," he said. "I'm just really leery about going in there to rescue everyone. The Master's bodyguards look bad enough but that robotic woman is lethal in a can. But such an impractical shape. I would think four legs on the floor would make a robot a lot more sturdy. More of a canine shape."

"How about a canine robot with no legs?" Magenta inquired.

"Why no legs?"

She looked at him like he was stupid. "Because then your robot dog would be on wheels and that seems to be what the robot dog on the work table over there uses."

Frank and Magenta turned to regard the mostly repaired shape of K-9.

"Oh, that robot dog," said Frank.

Magenta reverted to her Human form again. She bent down and picked Frank up and placed him on the work bench next to the still form of K-9. "Can you fix it?" Magenta asked in a more hopeful tone than she meant to comply.

"Um, I could give it a shot. What have we got to lose?" He wished he could retract that statement, but thought better on it and began sniffing around at the open hatch in K-9's side.

**A SHORT WAYS FROM THE BATTLEFIELD**

The white spherical ball lay above the grass on the fingertips of a strong severed hand. A feather duster descended and lightly dusted the top of the ball before retreating back to where it came.

"Thank you, Lurch. You too, Thing." Gomez Addams smiled gleefully as he selected a club from the golf bag that Fester was holding for him. Gomez turned to his guests as he lined up to take his shot. "Munster, I should let you know that I've played golf on all seven continents."

Herman Munster, a tall jovial being that belied his monstrous appearance, was attempting to straighten out the titanium golf club he had accidentally bent earlier. "Really? All seven?"

"Even Antarctica?" asked Grandpa Dracula.

Gomez took a practice swing just above the golf ball. "Yep. In the summer we'd use orange golf balls, but for the winter, when it was darkest, I had to devise a glowing, phosphorous golf ball. The trick was that after you hit the ball you had to hurry after it before it could melt too deep into the ice and snow."

"Sounds…challenging," said Herman. He had heard that golf fanatics could be very eccentric but he had no idea to what lengths they would go for a challenging game. He looked uneasily to Grandpa who just shrugged.

"Ah, yes. The Addams have always loved a challenging game of golf. Why, my grandfather said that the round of golf he played while Teddy Roosevelt was leading the charge up San Juan Hill was the most invigorating and challenging game of his life." Gomez paused in reflection and pulled out a smoldering cigar from his inner coat pocket. "Course the golf balls raining down on everyone on the battlefield was one of the reasons it was the last golf game of his life. Old Roosevelt had grandfather shot shortly after having him court martialed."

"Um," said Rincewind. The disheveled wizard from Discworld looked about uneasily. "Is this why you are having us play here?" The wizard was bent over inspecting the golf club bag that his Luggage had opened up to reveal within it. He pulled out a golf club and inspected it in trying to determine it's use.

Before them lay a clearing where dozens of superhuman, aliens and adventurers of varied alliances were doing their level best to kill, assimilate or beat the tar out of each other.

"Not really. The last time I played through here all we had were the man-eating plants, the occasional dinosaur and the quicksand for the main obstacles. Having a battle happening just as we are about to play a round of golf is just luck."

"Yes, but what type of luck would you say – good or bad?" asked Rincewind, who was still trying to deal with the way that the Addams and Munsters seemed to welcome the macabre things in life. Which seemed another reason his acquaintance next to him seemed to relate so well to them. Death, or at least the anthropomorphic construct of Death that functioned on Discworld, had taken a holiday. And since Rincewind was one of the few Humans that Death seemed to run into continually it only seemed natural for Death to want to bond with him which was one of the reasons Death had insisted that they join the Addams and Munsters in a friendly game of golf.

"WE REALLY SHOULD GET A MOVE ON. I HAVE A FEW THINGS I HAVE TO ATTEND TO OVER THERE."

Rincewind gulped. "Nothing that pertains to any of us though, right?"

"WE SHALL SEE," answered Death.

Rincewind became vexed. And when he became vexed, his feet usually started thinking for themselves and carried him far away from whatever it was that was vexing him. The problem was that every time he started to move away from them, the Addams' family butler, Lurch was somehow there in his way with a vice-like grip on his shoulder. This only added to him becoming more vexed. And somehow his peculiarly dangerous Luggage did not go into it's typically protective mode. The Luggage seemed to even like the butler who Rincewind was sure he had seen toss it some mothballs which the Luggage had snapped in midair with it's long carpet tongue.

Death's relationship with Rincewind was mainly a formal one. Death had an obligation to be present every time a wizard dies or at least is in mortal peril which could result in death. But in Rincewind's case every near death experience he had – and there were a lot of them – he managed to somehow survive, thus vexing Death to no end for all of his prompt arrivals. On some of those occasions Death had actually tried talking Rincewind into accepting the inevitable and take the plunge, and in some case where the wizard had been hanging from a tall precipice by his fingertips it had been quite literal. But Rincewind had been too busy contemplating staying alive to really consider Death's offer.

"Those fellows are quite festive," pointed out Herman, trying not to be nervous.

"Yeah," said Fester. "That exploding marshmallow man was quite wonderful. I don't think I could ever duplicate that trick."

Gomez shrugged. "When we get back from our vacation I'll buy a few marshmallow factories so you can have a go at it."

Fester brightened up. "Really? I'll have to see if Grandmama can make me a mold that big. I'm also going to have to see a supplier about getting more nitro. I don't think I can make enough on my own in the cellar."

"I could lend you a hand," volunteered Grandpa, happily. "My recipe for nitroglycerine has never let me down."

"But it sure blew you up a few times," interjected Herman, to which he laughed and jumped up and down to his own joke.

"Laugh it up, you screw loose pinhead. See if I'm there for you the next time you are running low of voltage."

Fester squinted down at the battlefield. "Gomez, don't we know that loud fellow down there?" Fester pointed down to where Coach Boomer was using his sonic voice powers to go against the sonic weapon of Sonar, a long time opponent of Green Lantern. The sonic abilities of the hero and villain had been enough to keep the ectoplasmic goo from touching them, and allow them to keep fighting while most everyone else were pulling themselves together.

"Say, he does bear a resemblance to that part-time gardener we use from time to time when the vines get to be too much for Morticia."

"Is that the one with the chainsaw in place of his right hand?" asked Fester.

"That's right. He works full time at the S-Mart on Elm Street. Ash was his name. He also gave Cousin Itt that crew cut haircut last year."

"Oh yeah," said Fester. "That was not a good look for him. Not everyone has a scalp that cries to be displayed for the world's appreciation." He ran a hand over his own scalp in retrospect. "The last time I say Ash was when he was asking Grandmama about the Addams lineage and where they were nowadays."

But Gomez had moved on to other matters. "Gentlemen," said Gomez, addressing everyone. "Let's get this game going." He stepped up to where Thing was holding the golf ball. With great relish, Gomez swung the club in small circles over his head before suddenly bringing it down with a great yell.

The ball and club flew out toward the fighters in the field.

On the battlefield in question everyone was still recovering from the explosion of the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man. While some combatants like Coach Boomer and Sonar were still going at each other, most were temporarily lulled by the contact with the ectoplasmic residue. And during this lull the combatants were able to take note of the sudden appearance of six large humanoid aliens when the ectoplasm residue disrupted the camouflage technology that hid them.

The Yautja hunters, otherwise known as Predators, were only briefly surprised that they had been revealed in the midst of the combatants. The leader of the Predators stood atop the TARDIS where he had been scanning among the fighters for the android that had blown off one of his arm shortly after they had arrived in this strange land.

The one-armed leader of the Yautja stood defiantly and proud as he glanced around once more for signs of Lore, the android who had wounded him. As those around him were looking at him a golf ball struck him in the side of the head. He yelled in rage as he almost fell off of the TARDIS partially due to the marshmallow goo. Then, alerted to something about to happen by the grinding noise in the air, the Yautja leader leaped away as the TARDIS faded from this plane of existence.

Giant Man moved to grab him but received an explosive plasma charge in his hand for his effort which burned his fingers badly. Waved his hand frantically in pain, Giant Man reached over to grab the villain known as Minister Blizzard, one of Wonder Woman's foes, in his burnt hand to use the villain's natural radiating coldness to sooth his aching hand despite the villain struggling there.

Both sides quickly realized that these deadly intruders were attacking everybody and anybody. The oldest of the hunters stood near Xander and was examining the power sword he had collected along with the head of Hordak, the former owner of the sword. The rogue of the Yautja was relishing being revealed before everyone and held up the head of the Persuader in one hand and in the other swung the atomic axe at Mr. Incredible who ducked and rolled away just in time.

The three younger hunters were having troubles of their own. One of them having obtained the weapons of the fallen Terra Man, along with his head, but had been busy trying to severe the wings off the Terra Man's dead winged steed for additional trophies when he had been revealed and had to leave one of the wings behind as a number of  
Terra Man's criminal comrades began to shoot at him.

The youngest of the alien hunters had been waiting for the optimum moment to strike swiftly and efficiently against a group of soldiers. Just as he was about to make his first kill among the United States Marine Corps Space Aviator Cavalry, 58th Squadron, his camouflage gear failed and the hunter suddenly became the prey. The 58th squadron, otherwise known as the 'Wildcards', had been laying down a suppressing fire against the cyborg Horde Troopers when the ectoplasmic explosion exposed the young Predator about to slice Lt. Col. "T.C." McQueen in half from behind. The hunter had been shot three times before escaping to cover, but Lt. Nathan West had lost most of his left arm and Lt. Paul Wang was doing their best to stop the bleeding.

"I shot that thing at least twice and he still was able to run off!" shouted Lt. Vanessa Damphousse. She was visibly disturbed at the sudden deadly alien encounter. Glancing down, she reached forward to touch something on the ground. Bringing up her hand she looked at the florescent green liquid on her fingers. "OhmyGod! I think this is it's blood!"

Lt. Cooper Hawkes pulled her down as more blaster fire filled the air. "He's gone! Hopefully he'll bleed to death! Worry about those Silicates that want to fill us full of holes!" To make his point he used his weapon to shot down another of the Horde Trooper cyborgs that were taking the opportunity of the Wildcards distraction to move in on them.

Lt. Damphousse turned to aid her squadron against the fresh attack. After turning and firing she wasn't aware when the Yautja spear gun entered her back and came most of the way through her chest ending her life almost instantly.

Capt. Shane Vansen and Lt. Col. McQueen returned fire on the moving Yautja scoring a number of hits that were deflected off the hunter's armor until something vital was struck and he went down hard.

McQueen glanced from Lt. Damphousse's dead body to West's lost arm. "Paying our debt of the Doctor is proving to be more expensive every moment." He thought back to the peace agreement that the Doctor had been able to delegate between Earth and the Chigs back home, thus saving thousands…millions…perhaps all of mankind. No, the lives of him and his squadron could never pay the debt they owed the Doctor. But they could try. With as few lives as possible

Nearby, the young Yautja hunter that had originally taken Seska's skull on his first hunting excursion in this unique land had outdone his fellow hunters by shooting down Tundro earlier. He had been busy skillfully cut off the creature's massive skull while being careful of not damaging the armored plates around the neck and yet remaining unobserved in all the chaos. But after the strange white goopy explosion he stood revealed next to his newly acquired trophy. He wiped at the white goop all over his back and covering his visor. He struck the engage switch for his camouflage gear but it just crackled a little and failed. He snarled in anger, not willing to part with such an exquisite trophy.

A fierce yell behind him was followed by an explosion as Zandor of the Herculoids fired one of the explosive energy rocks that he had ironically got from Tundro earlier. The Predator was blown back away from Tundro's body. As the young hunter picked himself up he tried to use his shoulder cannon but it proved to be inoperable either from all the ectoplasmic residue or from his fall. He unleashed his arm knives in his gauntlets just as the massive rock ape, Igoo, tried to grab him, losing a stony finger for his efforts.

Igoo stepped back but howled in pain and anger. Instinctively, Igoo stayed between the murderous hunter and the body of his friend, Tundro, sensing that the hunter wanted to return to his kill. Zandor held off firing another explosively charged rock because he didn't have a clear shot with Igoo in the way.

The young Predator, outraged at having anything stand in the way of his trophy, fired a netgun at Igoo but something jumped in the way and was ensnared instead. The protoplastic creature Gloop oozed out from the netting while gurgling its dislike at the Yautja hunter.

The young hunter leapt over Gloop and charged Igoo firing two of his nearly impossibly sharp arm knives from his gauntlet directly at him. Both blades pierced halfway into Igoo's chest and almost distracted rock simian from the head on attack. The young hunter jumped up in order to decapitate the tall stone simian creature with one blow but Igoo grabbed both of the bladed arms in his hands at great pain to himself and fell back and turned so that the young hunter was impaled by Tundro's cannon horn through his back, spraying a good amount of green florescent blood everywhere.

Zandor hurried over to Igoo who just sat there and stared at the bladed weapons stuck in his chest. Gloop rolled his protoplasmic sac over to Igoo and gurgled in alarm.

"Don't worry, Gloop. Igoo is fine." Zandor tried to pull on of the blades out of the rock ape's chest but it wouldn't budge. "Once we are back on Quasar we will go to the volcano that spawned his kind and pour some of the molten rock into his damaged areas. He will mend shortly after."

Gloop made some more gurgling sounds after stretching over by Tundro.

Sadly, Zandor shook his head. "No, Gloop. I'm afraid that won't help Tundro. His days are done I'm afraid."

Gloop made a sad sound and seemed to bow.

Somewhere another golf ball was struck. This time it had been hit by Herman Munster. The special titanium golf ball was indented on one side but that didn't cause it to veer any as it flew up high and struck one of the fighters facing against the Borg vessels that had been attempting to merge together to form a larger cube vessel.

Black Adam looked at the offending ball that had smacked him in the butt.

"What is that?" asked Ultraman, who was just flying back after pressing on an attack that had succeeded in destroying another Borg vessel. The flying Borg vessels had almost been wiped out. "Is it a new weapon?"

"Something is going on down there," said Black Adam with a dark scowl. He dropped the golf ball letting it fall down to the ground.

One of the large lion shaped vessels that had partnered with them against the Borg pulled up alongside them. "We've got most of them," said the voice of Commander Kogane over the loudspeaker of the black lion ship. "Any idea on how to get the few that remain?"

Ultraman pointed down at the people way down below them. "They're fighting down there. Not just against the Borg, but against each other. No, not each other. Against the newcomers."

Black Adam turned to the lion vessel. "You arrived with these newcomers. What do you know of this?" It wasn't meant as a question so much as a demand. A demand that had an unspoken promise of pain and punishment if Kogane lied at all to him.

"Hey, I don't have any idea. Soon as we arrived we came up here and were fighting at your side." Inside his ship, Kogane flipped an alarm to let the other members of Voltron Force knew that if it had been revealed that they weren't exactly friends of the villains they had been fighting alongside. In fact, now that the Borg were regrouping, the flying villains were sure to discover that the Voltron group was apart of those gathered to stop the forces of the Master.

Black Adam stared at the black lion suspiciously. He turned to Ultraman. "I'll be back." He flew down without another word.

Star Sapphire and Baron Blitzkrieg flew up to Ultraman. "The Borg are retreating back to that which spawned them," said the golden armor plated Nazi baron, indicating the small Borg vessels that were flying back to valley that the Borg controlled. "Where has the dark one gone?"

"He is called Black Adam," said Kogane. "He's rather arrogant, so someone as lightweight as you and I had better watch ourselves around him."

"Don't forget me!" growled Ultraman. "I'm even more dangerous than Black Adam!"

Baron Blitzkrieg was furious but knew that he was no match for a powerhouse like Ultraman or Black Adam. But it was a feminine voice that spoke next. "You all forget that the female is the more dangerous of the species!"

Kogane chose that moment to speak up. "Something seems to be up with my friends. I'm going to check on them. One of their ships may be damaged."

Kogane flew past a few of the other flying villains that he and his comrades had been fighting alongside against the flying Borg vessels. They all seemed to be heading to regroup around Black Adam and the others. He didn't know how long they would be stuck boasting about their own prowess to each other so he had to make every second count.

Princess Allura contacted him on his viewscreen. "Keith, the Borg have retreated."

"I know, Allura. And any minute now our 'allies' are going do discover that we were actually brought to this pocket dimension to fight them as well as the Borg."

The other monitors flared to life as the other members of his team signed in. "Tell me we don't have to fight those guys," was the first thing Garett said. "Those guys are super powered monsters!"

"Yeah," admitted Pidge. "I really don't want to have to hurt Bizzaro. I kinda like him."

"We may not have to," said McClain. "Look, they are all decided to head down to the battlefield."

"What do we do?" asked Pidge.

Kogane checked his monitoring screens. He didn't want to dive into that battlefield. There wasn't enough space. Any mishap of theirs could cause them to come crashing down on dozens of people. And then he spotted it. "Time to form Voltron!"

"Now? What is our objective?"

Kogane transferred what he was seeing to the others. On the screen they could now see the Constructicons merged into their Devastator form facing off against the Borg union of Giganta and the giant android Mr. Atom. "That giant Borg drone is beating that other giant robot. We have to destroy it."

The lion ships rose into position for their merger into the giant fighting robot Voltron. Having an obtainable objective brought them together again and within moments they were engrossed in another battle that would challenge all that they had to give.

When Rincewind struck his golf ball, it had been powered mostly be fear. It flew over the battlefield to a place where Brainwave and Mr. Medulla had recommenced their mental blasts at each other after recovering from the effects of the ectoplasmic residue. The golf ball struck Mr. Medulla right in the side of the head knocking him unconscious.

Brainwave, unsure whether to be grateful or upset to the interruption of his battle, took a moment to gather his strength. Then looking around he saw his old friend Rag Doll wrestling with a young spirited woman, Nyssa of Traken, who happened one of the Doctor's companions. He could tell that Rag Doll was just playing with the young woman since there was no way she could wrestle against the triple-jointed mad man and last this long otherwise.

Seeing an opportunity, Brainwave seized control of Nyssa's mind. And then had her give Rag Doll a very sloppy, wet kiss on his mask. The triple-jointed villain tried to pull away in surprise.

"Now if you are done with her, we have more pressing things we should focus on."

Rag Doll knocked Nyssa out with a head butt and pushed her aside. "You always were a spoilsport, Brainwave."

Brainwave didn't answer. What caught his attention was one of the Borg drones that had managed to get in farther than the rest of them. It was working on some of the Borg nanite infected villains that had escaped from the lab tents. Two drones who used to be Foot ninjas were scraping the ground for the white ectoplasmic residue and then wiping it on their comrades. But what had originally drawn his attention to them was the fear emanating from the fully processed drone.

"What goes on here?" he asked, with bringing his telekinetic shields up to full strength.

The drone kept working on what he was doing but regarded him for a second. "This fluid from the explosion – whatever it is has temporarily freed me from the control of the Borg Collective. As this residue fades, so does my control."

Brainwave wave glanced at Rag Doll who just shrugged. "So what are you doing?" he asked the drone.

"I'm trying to disengage myself as much as possible so that when the Borg signal can no longer be avoided, I will no longer be connected in such a way that I'll be controlled by it."

Brainwave regarded the information while Rag Doll went back to find someone to fight. "But these others – they have the micro-machines in them – the nanites, are you controlling them?"

"I injected them with messenger nanites so that I can work in a coordinate effort with these other thralls of the Borg. I am draining the nanites slowly out of their system and into my own. It is a slow process but many areas in the body have to be repaired as before they can be totally removed."

"Who are you?"

"My name is Joaquin de la Vega. But you may have heard of me by the other name that I inherited from my grandfather. That is Zorro."

"You are Zorro?"

The old drone didn't pause in his work. "My grandfather was Zorro, as was my father. When my turn came I, too, took up the sword and the mask. But over time I became old. But not too old to become a drone. I was part of the group that traveled here with the Borg Queen. I…" His face started to go blank.

Brainwave acted quickly by grabbing a handful of the white ectoplasmic residue in one of the drones hands and throwing it right on top of the drone's head so that it trickled down his face.

The drone that had been Zorro shuddered. "Thank you. I had almost returned to the Collective." He plunged his wrist tubules back into the unprocessed drone of Rattler.

Brainwave scooped another handful of ectoplasma onto another nanite-infected thrall of the Borg. This one he recognized by it's greenish pallor and trim beard as a fellow villain he had worked with before – Wotan. "You have definitely seen better days."

The drone paused briefly. "Brainwave."

The mental villain was stunned at the response. "Wotan? Are you cognizant?"

"Finally, yes. I am a master of technology, meditation, alchemy and the arcane arts. This could not bind me for long."

Brainwave wasn't so sure of that but said nothing. "If we can master this technology and turn it against the Borg, perhaps even against the Master, too, we could create an army of cybernetic soldiers to serve us."

Wotan had opened a leather pouch from part of his shirt. Chanting a few sentences in a long-forgotten tongue, a surge of black nanites painfully poured out of his mouth and into the pouch. Again and again the process occurred until finally his system was clear of them.

He trembled on his knees but found the strength to stand. Tying the pouch closed with a leather string, he brought out a piece of coal shaped like a stick and began to draw on it. Finally, he used another piece of leather cord to tie it around his neck. "Now they can not infest or control me again."

Brainwave considered what he was. He was a man of science and didn't give the mystical much credence, but on the other hand in his long career he had seen many examples of it working. "If we had more of those things that you made, we would stand a far greater chance of defeating the Borg." He pointed to were the drone Zorro was still working on disconnecting himself and purging the other infectees.

Wotan considered it. It wasn't the best plan but it did increase their odds of overcoming the Borg. "Very well. Watch my back while I cleanse these fools."

"Of course," agreed Brainwave. They both knew that they could only trust each other so far, but in warfare you would survive longer if you had somebody looking out for you.

Near the fallen tower, the Huntress snapped her whip at Tygra of the ThunderCats to which he countered with his bolo-whip. Her husband, the Sportsmaster, was holding off Panthra with a steel-reinforced hockey stick and several explosive hockey pucks. She hissed at Tygra before throwing a pepper bomb that he couldn't avoid. The pepper exploded in front of his face before he could shield his face. Angrily and in pain, Tygra lashed out blindly with his bolo-whip, accidentally striking Cheetara, one of his fellow ThunderCats while she had been battling the villainess Cheetah.

WilyKit and WilyKat, twin siblings and the youngest members of the ThunderCats, used well aimed slingshots to keep the Huntress to busy to take advantage of Tygra's inability to see.

The Huntress wailed in pain as one of the kids had managed to strike her on her brow. She leaped up and began to climb after the two agile kids. WileyKit turned and took another shot as the Huntress was pulling herself up to another level. The shot was true and scored on the she-hunter's fingers causing her to fall to the ground. "You damn kids!" She had managed to land on all fours but she had a slight sprain in her ankle that was going to slow her down.

Someone chuckled nearby. "Kids today have no appreciation for their elders." Captain Boomerang stood over the stunned form of Lynx-O. He threw one of his boomerangs which went out and over the two siblings while emitting a high sonic screech that forced the two kids to stop and clamp their hands over their ears.

"You can't just yell at kids," said another newcomer. Major Bludd aimed his Uzi up at where WilyKit and WilyKat who were climbing away again as fast as they could. "You need to teach them a lesson that they may remember." He addressed the two feral-looking offspring. "Here's a poem of mine that will help you two to mind your betters." He fired off a quick round of bullets to get their attention. "When you're feeling low and woozy/slap a fresh clip in your Uzi/assume the proper firing stance/and make those suckers jump and dance." He opened fire again but this time he was aiming at the two siblings while laughing.

Seeing the children of his pride in danger, Lion-O leapt from where he had been battling against the serpentine villain Copperhead. Copperhead to chase after him but found that his tail had been grabbed by the Slayer, Faith. Lion-O landed behind the two Aussie villains and bashed their heads together. Captain Boomerang fell like a stone but Major Bludd managed to stay coherent enough to ram the butt of his Uzi into Lion-O's kidneys.

Lion-O stumbled back. Major Bludd moved away and turned. Aiming his Uzi, Bludd was about to kill the leader of the ThunderCats when a sweeping beam of photonic energy blazed toward them causing everyone to have to duck and move away from their lives due to Ray Stantz of the Ghostbusters using his proton pack to blast Black Adam back from where he had been beating The Commander into the ground.

No one had been hit but a second later the already fallen metal tower fell in upon itself as did the cries of those who were in it's wreckage.

"The cubs!" shouted Cheetara, who raced to rescue WilyKit and WilyKat.

"Huntress!" cried the Sportsmaster for his wife. The athletically themed villain struck Panthro to the side of the head with his hockey stick and then raced like the Olympic athlete that he was toward the wreckage of the tower.

When Lion-O moved to block him but Sportsmaster used the hockey stick in order to pole vault over him and land at the side of the unconscious Captain Boomerang. Looking into the wreckage of the tower he could just make out his wife's arm covered in blood. Grabbing two of the boomerangs, he got in a throwing stance. "Time to find out how many ways you can skin a cat!"

A golf ball struck him in the head.

"What was that?" asked Sportsmaster.

"EXCUSE ME," said a voice behind him. "BUT I BELIEVE I AM SUPPOSED TO PLAY THE BALL WHERE IT LIES."

"What?" The tall man addressing him was dressed in the darkest of cloaks and holding a scythe in one hand. He raised the boomerangs in his hand to suddenly discover that they weren't there. "What's going on?"

"I WAS TOLD I AM TO HIT THE BALL OVER TO THAT FLAG OVER YONDER WHERE THERE IS A SMALL HOLE THAT THE BALL FITS INTO."

The Sportsmaster glanced down to see what ball he was referring to only to see himself lying still on the ground. Embedded into his skull was what looked like a golf ball. "Am I dead?"

"YES." Death glanced around at the battles being fought around him. It was definitely one of the most colorful battles he had ever attended. "PARDON ME. I'LL JUST BE A MOMENT."

The Sportsmaster was so caught up in staring down at his own corpse that he jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"A little jumpy, are we?" said his wife, the Huntress.

"Well, who wouldn't be? Look at me down there. I'm dead, damn it!" He did a double take. "Wait! Are you dead, too?"

"Afraid so. But at least we went together."

"I guess so," he said glumly. They watched together as Lion-O and the ThunderCats worked on extracting the two Thunderian youths from the wreckage.

Within moments Death returned with another man who was naked. "Why is he running around in the buff?" asked the Sportsmaster.

"You can see me?" Rodney Skinner's spirit stepped behind Death suddenly embarrassed. "How is that possible? I'm supposed to be invisible, yet I can see myself but no one else seems to notice me."

"It's because you are dead!" snapped the Huntress. "Just like we are. Now why are you naked? You go insane during all the shooting and just threw your clothes away?"

"MR. SKINNER'S BODY IS INVISIBLE. IN ORDER TO MAKE USE OF THAT TRAIT HE HAD TO FORGO APPAREL."

"How'd you die," asked Sportsmaster, seeing Skinner eye their dead bodies.

"Die? Oh, yeah. Now I remember. That Agent J blasted me thinking I was one of those homicidal monsters that blend in really well."

"PARDON ME," interrupted Death. "BUT I BELIEVE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE QUIET WHILE I TAKE THIS SHOT." Death was lining up near the golf ball that was slightly protruding from the skull of the Sportsmaster's corpse. In place of a regular golf club, Death was using the flat part of his scythe.

"Are you really going to hit that?" asked Sportsmaster.

"DO YOU THINK I SHOULD TAKE A MULLIGAN?"

"Uh, well, it's just that it's in my skull. Are you just going to knock it out?"

"I WAS PLANNING TO."

"Oh, this ought to be interesting," teased Skinner.

"It's a magic scythe, honey. Don't worry about it," soothed the Huntress who was beginning to like the thought of being dead which she had rarely thought about while she was alive. "You should help him with his stance."

"IS THAT WHAT IS CAUSING MY PROBLEM? I THOUGHT IT MIGHT BE MY GRIP."

Everyone glanced at Death's bony fingers but didn't say a word.

"Here, look at me." The Sportsmaster pretended that he had a golf club in his hand and went through the motions of hitting a golf ball. "Did you see how I held my hips and shoulders as I swung?"

"I SEE. I WILL TRY THAT. THANK YOU."

"Excuse me," said the Huntress. "But where do we go from here?"

"YOU GO WHERE YOU GO."

"That doesn't make sense," said Skinner, as he faded away.

"Did he just turn invisible?" asked the Huntress.

"HE WENT TO WHERE HE WENT."

"So…you don't know exactly?" asked the hesitant Huntress.

"I CUT THE CORD THATCONNECTS PEOPLE TO THEIR MORTAL SHELLS. WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THAT IS NOT UP TO ME."

The couple looked at each other uncertainly. "Then who is it up to?"

"WHY DON'T YOU FIND OUT FOR YOURSELVES?"

Without any more questions, the Huntress and the Sportsmaster faded away.

Death took a practice swing over the golf ball. "YES. THAT DOES SEEM BETTER."

Over head a thrown hammer made a thunderous impact with Ultraman causing him to drop Mr. Incredible. The Human Torch and Static Shock raced through the air attacking Amazo who formed a protective green shield in front of him. Iron Man traded blasts with Lazon and Radiation Roy.

A telepathic call field the field. "_Greetings, I am Professor X. My friends and I are coming to help those siding with the Doctor_."

On the ground a number of fighters were quickly approaching the battle approaching what remained of Garguax plastic androids. Wolverine hacked his way through the androids while Shadowcat simply phased herself. Sinbad used his sword but it proved harder to cut through the androids than Wolverine made it appeared. Dyna Girl used her ElectraCom to force her way through. Sinbad joined her fighting at her side much to her delight.

"AH, I WAS WONDERING IF THEY WOULD MAKE IT ON TIME." He checked a list he had and then examined a number of glass hourglasses with names on them. "ALMOST ALL HERE."

He took up his stance next to the golf ball. And swung.

**AUTHOR'S NOTES**

_Sorry it's been taking so long but the Doctors have been trying different pain meds on me and some of them just seem to take all my brains away. I hate it. I don't understand why anyone takes these pills for fun. It's not fun at all._

_Mekanique was a character introduced late in the DC Comics ALL-STAR SQUADRON series. The comic book writer Roy Thomas literally took her from the movie METROPOLIS (1927) and introduced her as a time-traveling agent for her creator Rotwang – and that is how I am using her here. Later in the comic book storylines, Mekanique teams up with Per Degaton and she supposedly falls in love with her which is where I am more or less tearing off from that continuity. Basically, her primary orders are to find a conquest seeking time-traveler and bring him/her/it back to Rotwang – and since the Master fits that description so much better Per Degaton, she would have to try bring the Master to Rotwang instead of Degaton._

_For those that don't remember, K-9 was decapitated by Kenny after the Doctor had been briefly assimilated by the Borg. The Borg tried to use the assimilated Doctor to call K-9 and have the robotic dog use the controls of the TARDIS to send it to the Borg._

_Let's see, I've introduced SPACE: ABOVE AND BEYOND. A great show and it ended way too soon. Check it out if it ever plays in your area._

_I've also avenged Tundro of the Herculoids' death. The part about Igoo being repaired by using molten lava from where he had been spawned I made up and was not a part of the regular show's history. _

_Joaquin de la Vega who claimed to be the third Zorro was last seen in A TANGLED WEB PART 7 : BORG ON THE RANGE and was one of the many drones that the Borg Queen took with her when she traveled to the Land of the Lost._

**METROPOLIS(1927)**

Mekanique –

Rotwang – (mentioned only)

**HISTORICAL FIGURE**

Teddy Roosevelt

**ARMY OF DARKNESS (1992)**

Ash – (Bruce Campbell) (mentioned only)

-

**SPACE: ABOVE AND BEYOND (1995 – 1996)**

Lt. Nathan West – (Morgan Weisser)  
Capt. Shane Vansen – (Kristen Cloke)  
Lt. Cooper Hawkes – (Rodney Rowland)

Lt. Vanessa Damphousse – (Lanei Chapman)

Lt. Paul Wang – (Joel de la Fuente)

Lt. Col. Tyrus Cassius "T.C." McQueen – (James Morrison)

**THUNDERCATS (1985 – 1987)**

Lion-O

Tygra

Panthro

Cheetara

WilyKit

WilyKat

Ben-Gali

Pumyra

Lynx-O


	24. Chapter 24

Apparel

A TANGLED WED Part 8 Chapter 24

A rich aroma rose from the small bucket perched over a campfire. Daisy Moses (she insisted everyone call her Granny as she figured that she earned that title at her age) used a wooden spoon that she had carved from a branch to stir the thick stew. "This batch is ready," she said with a tone of satisfaction. She had been very fortunate in finding some wild garlic and basil growing in the forest along with the largest strawberries she'd ever heard of.

The tall man behind her sniffed the air appreciatively. "Smells fabulous, Granny. Ta and Sa have already licked their plates clean and are begging for more of your cooking."

Granny rounded on the man wearing the dark uniform of a bailiff. Nostradamus 'Bull' Shannon could be an intimidating figure but Granny could see right through that charade. She could tell that he was as dense as her grand-nephew Jethro but was as tenderhearted as her granddaughter Ellie. "Those hairy naked goobers are pigging down all my hard cooked vitals before anyone else has had a chance to ask for seconds!"

Bull Shannon just shrugged not knowing the danger he was in. "Well, I guess everyone is still full from that giant sloth that you cooked up this morning. For some people it had been the first meal they had had in a day or two."

Granny laughed, her anger temporarily abated. "Heh! They grow varmits big around these parts, don't they? Big as the biggest moose I ever did see" She slapped Bull on the back with a strength that surprised the bailiff. "When Daniel Boone shot that sloth down I couldn't believe the size of it. Thought I'd taken too many sips from my jug for one day." She laughed and Bull decided to laugh along with her. "And when three giant leapin' lizards rushed out at Boone I thought he was a goner, but that was just before Davy Crockett himself jumped one of those lizards and Boone one of the others They wrestled 'em to the ground before killin' 'em right before my eyes!"

"I know, Granny." Bull lifted up his left arm that was bandaged. "I was there. Remember? I tackled the third lizard."

"I know. I just love tellin' it. I'd practicin' for when I see my kin folk again. They are going to be hard pressed to believe all this."

A look of concern crossed Bull's face. "Do you really think those to men were Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett?"

Granny waved her finger under the bailiff's nose. "Of course they are who they say they are! Nobody but those two could have done what they done."

"But Granny, didn't they live…and die…over a hundred years ago?"

Granny waved her hand around the camp. "You've talked to some of these people. Over seventy people from all over the world and they all think it's a different year. So if that's true than who's to say that Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone couldn't have found their way here, too?"

Bull scratched his bald scalp. "I guess so, Granny."

"Tell you what, when they get back from their scoutin' and huntin' with that mountain man Mad Jack and his mule, Number 7, we'll ask 'em things to verify their story. All right?"

He looked down shamefaced, but nodded.

"You know, they looked a lot of like. I reckon they must be kin. All that trailblazen and huntin' must be in the blood."

Bull said nothing.

She took and patted his other hand softly. "It's okay, Bull. You stay here and tend the fire while I go deal with those namby-pambies over there." She pointed with her wooden spoon over to where on the other side of the camp one of the two men trying to interact with the two Pakuni, Ta and Sa, was jumping and waving his arms about in order to get her attention.

She nodded to the man in order for him to stop looking so foolish. Begrudgingly and slowly she began to make her way across the camp with the bucket of stew held by it's handle which she grabbed with an oven mitt that Crockett had made for her from a piece of the hide taken from the prehistoric giant sloth. She took only a moment to glance at a group of kids sitting together that had lost their friend Kenny to some giant dinosaur before they had found the group. The poor little tykes were still in such shock that they didn't even seem to be able to morn for their friend's tragic demise. The fattest one had eaten like a pig which assured Granny that he was bottling up his grief with food. She glanced up and said a quick prayer for them as she moved on.

She paused to watch a man in a brown suit trying to brush off an old log he wanted to sit down on. She had been watching him on and off doing that same thing for over an hour and her curiosity had gotten the better of her. "Everything all right, Mr. Monk?"

The man didn't look up but did seem to consider her question. "Um, no, no. Is there any other place to sit around here?"

"Well, there's God good earth."

"No. Too dirty. And uneven. And the possibility of grass stains. And then there are the insects." They watched as a giant dragonfly with a three-foot wingspan flew past with a pigeon in it's mandibles.

"They sure do grow 'em big around here!" Granny laughed. She had no idea how she had come to this strange land. She remembered stepping out of Mr. Drysdale's bank and spotting a new fangled telephone booth on the street corner. She had gone inside it to call her son-in-law, Jed, to send Jethro in to pick her up in the family automobile. The next thing she knew a pedestal in the middle of the room glowed and the door behind her had sealed itself shut. When it opened again a few minutes later she found herself looking out into a lush, green forest. She went out to explore and soon found a young man and his uncle that told of a similar experience on how they had arrived here. Remembering some of Jethro's stories from some of the sci-fi comics he had been reading, Granny had come to the conclusion that they had been kidnapped by Martians. Tim O'Hara, a newspaper man, and his uncle Martin assured her that they didn't think that was the case though they didn't have a more logical explanation. Martin did speculate about an abnormality in the space-time continuum but she figured he'd just had too much sun and needed some water.

She shook her head and planned to dwell on it all later. She left Mr. Monk who had begun trying to frantically try cleaning the log again with his dwindling supply of antiseptic wipes.

"Hey there, Jughead. Want a third helpin' of stew? Or maybe it's a fourth helpin'? I forget how many times you came back for more."

The teenager in question had a very dated beanie on his head and was reclining on the ground in the shade of a large tree. He looked up in appreciation, but patted his overly extended belly gingerly. "As much as it pains me to pass on such fine cooking as yours, Granny, I'm so full of that giant sloth you made earlier that I think that if I eat any more right now it might do me an injury." He put his hand on the white shaggy dog next to him who was whining slightly with his paws over his jaws while looking at the bucket of stew. "Even Hotdog here is too stuffed to eat any more. You've really outdone yourself."

Granny grimaced but understood. Her real reason for stopping was because she hadn't wanted to give her cooked vitals to those rude monkey boys that some of the others were clamoring over. At least not all of her vitals. "What about your friends? That red-haired boy and …"

Granny stopped as she caught sight of Archie Andrews leaning against a tree nearby while two young women, Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge, seemed to be leaning into his shoulders in order to be comforted from this strange environment that provided unusual and dangerous creatures. But somehow Granny got the feeling that it was the young women that were actually trying to comfort the young man rather than the other way around. "Somehow I don't get the feelin' that food is what helps him relax." She turned away shaking her head.

One of the men with the two hungry Pakuni was waving frantically at her again. She gave then a smile and waved back. Then she turned to an older looking man that was about her age who was accompanied by a teenager wearing a school jacket with a large 'W' on it's vest.

"Howdy, Mr. Magoo. How are ya getting' along?"

The near-sighted man turned to a tall bush nearby and began to address it. "Eh? Fine, fine, young lady. My what a beautiful picture you make at this picnic. The mayor should sponsor a picnic in the park every year as I was just saying to this fireman."

The young man looked embarrassed. "I'm Scott Howard, ma'am. Mr. Magoo's eyes are giving him some trouble."

"Nonsense!" interjected Magoo. "If my eyesight were bad, than how could I say that this radiant beauty before us is the most beautiful lady in the park?"

Granny blushed. "Well I'm a doctor and I think that his eyesight is just fine." She leaned over to whisper in Mr. Magoo's ear. "I'll see you later over yonder. You can help me pick some of those jumbo-sized berries they got here."

Magoo grinned as he elbowed the trunk of the tree. "Hee hee! I think she likes me!"

Granny headed off leaving Scott to direct the near-blind man toward the giant strawberry patch where some of the kids that had been sharing a cigarette were feeding the giant fruit to a baby brontosaurus.

"At last!" said the tall, wiry man who had been waving at her. "Ross has been driving me nuts! Ta and Sa refuse to come into the clearing because they feel to exposed. Ross thinks that if they don't get more food soon they may loose interest and leave."

Granny shook her head. "Cosmo, those hairy moochers ain't going anywhere till they've filled their greedy bellies plumb full with whatever free vitals they can find."

Kramer gave her a sideways look. "Well, he's worried that their insecurities would get the better of them and they'd take off to find some nuts and berries-"

"Nuts and berries? Over my cookin'? He's crazy!"

Kramer was almost bowled over as Granny plowed past him.

Ta and Sa, the two Pakuni brothers, were each just over five feet tall. Their entire bodies, except for their faces, were covered in thick, long hair. Their eyebrows were very pronounced making their eyes appear to be beady in appearance. Their hands were dark and gnarled from a lifetime of digging for roots. In each of those hands they held out a large piece of bark that someone had made a rough bowl out of.

Ross Geller stood up from where he'd been kneeling in front of Ta and Sa. "Finally! What took you so long?" He reached for the bucket of stew only to have his knuckles sharply rapped with Granny's wooden spoon. Ross shook his hand as he silently cried out.

"You and your freeloadin' goobers be polite or I'll teach you what else I use a wooden spoon for!"

Fortunately for Ross, Kramer took that moment to intercede. "Granny, we do all appreciate all the cooking you've been doing. Really, it's wonderful. It's just that finding these two cave people are a historic find. Probably worth millions. And Ross here is just so focused on finding these two, well, he's just feeling extremely validated for all his years of studying to become a doctor of Paleontology."

Granny scrunched up her eyes at him. "He's what kind of doctor?"

"Paleontology," answered Kramer. "It's the study of things that have been extinct for a long time, like Ta and Sa."

"Well, they stink all right. I'm going to have to get right on making some of my lye soap from some of that animal fat I saved."

Cosmo shook his head. "No, Granny. Not stink." He leaned in conspiratorially. "Though that soap idea might come in handy because they reek. But, no, extinct means things that are long thought to have died off."

Granny blinked. "You mean to say that he studied to be able to doctor things that he thought would already be dead? What is he? A witch doctor?"

"No, Granny. Ross studies things that have died off millions of years ago."

She shook he head and handed Kramer the bucket of stew. "Well, I guess that way he don't have to worry about any of his patients dyin' on him." She walked away still shaking her head.

Cosmo was instantly surrounded by the two eager Pakuni so he began trying to pour some of the stew into their bark bowls. "Hot! Hot! Very hot!" Granny had taken her oven mitts with her.

Kramer stepped back and set down the bucket as Ta and Sa began blowing on their food even as they used their fingers to scrape the food into their mouths.

"That woman is insane!" snapped Ross, once he was finally able to speak again. He was still gingerly shaking the hand she had whacked.

"She thinks the same thing about you, too, buddy."

"You know when I first got here Granny was going on and on about a talking dog with glasses that she met here."

"That would be Mr. Peabody," nodded Kramer. "Yeah, he left with some others before you got here."

Ross had been running a calculating eye over Ta and Sa. It wasn't easy judging with all the hair and flesh – he was used to studying bone fragments - that they had but due to their cranial features he was willing to bet his petrified triceratops egg back home that these two were a previously undiscovered forefathers to the Neanderthals. "Wait, back up. Are you saying that there was a talking dog here? With glasses?"

"Oh, yeah. Mr. Peabody said that he was a time traveler. But after Dr. Emilio Lizardo and his partner Warlord Shank kidnapped Mr. Peabody's pet boy and some others in order to find out where his time machine was, Mr. Peabody organized a rescue party and when to save them. There were some interesting characters in that ground, let me tell you. The people still here may seem strange to you but they were nothing like that Conan or Buzz Lightyear guy."

Ross fell to his knees. "I've finally figured it out."

"What's that, buddy?" Kramer looked down with concern at his newfound friend.

"I've finally lost it." He waved a hand toward Ta and Sa who were fighting with each other over what was left in the stew bucket. "I stumble on the find of the millennium here and none of it's real."

"What's not real?" Kramer asked, confused.

"None of this. This place even has dinosaurs. So I must be in some type of sanitarium and you guys are either part of my delusions or you are patients locked in with me."

Kramer nodded. "I see where you are going with that. But don't you think you should consider some other possibilities?"

Ross slapped himself in the forehead. "Of course. That taxi I had to jump out of the way of last night. It must have hit or I hit something else. I'm in a coma! Oh man, Rachel is going to kill me if she has to raise Emma all by herself."

From out of the woods came a man. "Ta! Sa!"

A tall dark haired man wearing outdoor gear raised over to the startled Pakuni.

"It took me a year to do it but I'm back! Where's Holly and Will? Where's Cha-Ka? Answer me!"

"Hey, easy fella. You're startling them," eased Kramer. He put a hand on the man's shoulder but it was shaken off.

"I need to know where my kids are!" snapped the man.

"We got some kids here. Maybe some of them are yours. Who are you by the way? My name is Kramer." He held out his hand.

Reluctantly, the man turned from the frightened Pakuni and shook his hand "I'm Rick Marshall. I landed here a number of years ago with my kids, Will and Holly."

"And you were separated from them? Aw, that's no good." Kramer led him back into the clearing so that he could see all the other people there and perhaps find his kids. Ta and Sa followed behind while Ross stayed and bemoaned his possible coma status.

Rick glanced around at faces, searching. "Two years ago I was checking out a possible way back from this place for all of us but I was suddenly ejected back to our world."

"This is another world?" Kramer's eyes bugged out. "I thought we'd just gone back in time or something."

Rick shook his head. "No. This place is some type of micro-world that bends back on itself. We're not sure who built it originally or what even happened to them. Other people eventually arrive here but from various time periods and locations. Sometimes even other worlds."

"Wow! That is just so…wow!"

"There's never been so many people here before. I wonder what happened."

Kramer shrugged. "Most everybody here has arrived in the last day or two. That's all I know."

Rick moved in a slow circle trying to see all the faces of people that were still relaxing after partaking from Granny's vitals. "I don't see them. Wait!" He took off running towards the strawberry patch and Kramer followed.

A skinny teenager was feeding the baby brontosaurus a football sized strawberry when his tall redhead girlfriend tapped him on the shoulder. "Eric, we have company."

Patting the young dinosaur on it's haunches, Rick ran his other hand up to scratch it's back. "He's a little bigger than when I last saw him, but if you can believe it my daughter, Holly, had been trying to train this baby bronto to be a pet. She had even managed to get him to pull carts of fruit for her. She named him Dopey."

One of the tall teens doubled over laughing, expelling the smoke he'd been holding in his lungs. "Dopey! That's funny because we-"

The man next to him hit him hard in the arm. "Shut up, Kelso!"

"Ow! Dude! That hurt!" Kelso thought about it for a second. "Good one though."

"Oh, I get it!" said the short young man of indeterminate ethnicity. "It's funny because Hyde kept blowing smoke into the baby dino's face to get it high and it's name turns out to be Dopey!" He laughed. "It is always funnier for me when I actually get it."

Rick stepped around and examined Dopey's eyes. The young brontosaurus seemed unusually listless and it's eyes were not dilating. "You kids got Dopey high? What were you thinking?"

The short dark-haired girl next to Hyde spoke up. "Listen, mister, what Hyde did was really stupid-"

Hyde protested. "Hey, Jackie-"

She continued on. "-but he didn't hurt the baby dinosaur. He was just goofing off and trying to lighten everyone's mood." She snorted and started to giggle. "What was I saying?" she asked.

"You are all high, aren't you?" accused Rick.

Donna stepped in. "Listen, we are sorry we messed with your daughter's pet dino."

"Yeah," agreed Eric. "No harm no foul, right?"

"Those drugs are no good for you kids," said Rick. "They can ruin your whole life."

"He's right," said Kramer. "They've done a scientific study that proves that extensive drug use during your teen years retards your emotional growth and maturity for the rest of your life."

Hyde was having none of it. "That's a lie fabricated by the government in order to keep people from the freedom of attaining happiness in their own homes!"

"You kids are totally wasted and out of control," responded Rick.

"What does it matter to you anyway, man! We are out here in the middle of nowhere! Dinosaurs and stuff are roaming around! Who do you think you are? A park ranger or something?"

Rick leaned in so that they were almost nose to nose. "As a matter of fact I am a park ranger."

Hyde blinked in surprise, but Kelso howled in delight as he pointed to his friend. "BURN! You just got so burned, man!"

Hyde didn't say anything. He just turned and slugged Kelso hard in the arm repeatedly.

Then things seemed to go crazy.

Dash Parr hadn't known how long he'd been running for his life through the jungles of the Land of the Lost. All he knew was that if Zoom hadn't come after him that madman Johnny Quick would have caught and left him dead somewhere under a bush. Sure, Dash was a great speedster but Johnny Quick was like lightning when it came to running. If the maniac hadn't been chasing him for amusement there was no way that Dash could have lasted this long

Zoom had caught up with them up on one of the mountain passes as Dash had been running around a yeti hoping that the savage beast would be able to get at least one good swing in to knock Johnny Quick away. After that they had raced down to the valley and plowed through a patch of quicksand. Dash had doubled back which had given Zoom a chance to meet Johnny Quick head on.

It hadn't turned out as Dash had expected. Johnny Quick proved to be even faster than Zoom and soon had him half buried in sand and was beating his head in. Only due to the quick thought of Dash throwing a number of speeding coconuts at the evil speedster had Zoom been able to survive. After that it had been a number of repeat battles all over the Land of the Lost with Zoom having to save Dash from Johnny Quick and they Dash returning the favor.

Breathing hard, Dash had been only a quarter of the way into the clearing when he realized that there were a lot of people around. "Uh oh!" His mother had warned him repeatedly to try to never have a super battle around civilians. He began to pore on the speed to lead the psychotic speedster away when he was tripped by Johnny Quick. He bounced and rolled fifteen feet.

Groaning, the young superhero wearily and painfully rolled over so that he was on his hands and knees.

"Well, you've led me on a merry chase, kid, but enough is enough." Johnny Quick stood before the prostrate boy six feet in front of him. An evil sneer appeared on his face as he suddenly stepped aside at super speed and raised his left arm to clothes-line the rear attacking Zoom in the throat.

Zoom was temporarily down gasping for breath, the evil speedster raced forward to kick Dash's head like a football but the youth rolled to the side even as he threw a handful of dirt into the villain's eyes.

"I'M GOING TO CRIPPLE YOU AND THEN LET YOU SINK SLOWLY IN QUICKSAND, BOY!" He wiped painfully at the sand though some of it was indented into his eye due to the super speed at which it had been thrown. He was still able to see even though it was cloudy and painful.

"You aren't going to do anything to the kid," growled a voice.

His vision clearing, Johnny Quick did a double-take. "What are you supposed to be? A reject from an old teenage horror flick?" Standing there in a high school jacket was a growling werewolf – claws and all.

Scott Howard bared his teeth and howled showing the villain that he should take his threat seriously. He hadn't planned on acknowledging his werewolf heritage with all the people he had met here but he couldn't just stand idle while the very obviously demented man in red killed the kid.

In response to the young werewolf's challenge, an evil smile crossed his face just before he became a blur. He raced around and around the werewolf so fast that the air spun Scott like a top. "You're probably used to this kind of move from when you chase your tail. But let's see how you like it at Mach 1."

A thick branch was thrown at just the right level to hit Johnny Quick in the legs causing him to fall and roll. Scott Howard fell hard on his but and struggled to find his feet but had to give it up in order to throw up.

"Now don't try anything like that again!" came the threatening tone of Bull Shannon. In his hand he held another stick like the one that had already hit the speedster in the legs.

"You'll pay for that!" threatened Johnny Quick as he attempted to get to his feet; his right knee was obviously causing him a lot of pain.

"It'll be hard to come through on your threats if I have to bust your kneecaps," responded the night court bailiff. He's had had to face a lot of things while working the court circuit, but people that hurt women, kids or animals were just so many kinds of wrong to him.

"You think a stick is going to stop me?" He eased his foot down to test how tender it was.

"I think it'll help," said a voice behind him. "Looks like all it took was a well placed stick to slow you down in the first place."

Turning, Johnny Quick faced Zoom. The hero's costume was torn and half of his chest was bare. Purple and black bruises covered his body along with streaks of blood.

"You aren't even worthy of facing me!" Johnny Quick spun his arm in a clockwise circle at super speed generating a blast of air that knocked Zoom back into the jungle. The villain turned and sent another burst of super fast air at Bull who was about to throw his other stick. Bull was thrown back and through the campfire singeing his uniform and eyebrows. Dash was moving out of the way but was caught in enough of the wind to send him tumbling out of control.

The evil speedster tried to stand with his injured knee but found it too painful. He swore profusely. Noticing that he was being slowly surrounded by the people of the camp, he said, "This could be a problem. Time to change tactics."

Kelso, Hyde, Eric and Fez lobbed a couple dozen firecrackers at his feet but that merely annoyed him. Granny waved her wooden spoon like it was a weapon while Ross took up what seemed to be a karate stance.

Hobbling at super speed while sending blasts of arm generated wind to blow people out of his path, Johnny Quick managed to grab an old, black man from behind for a hostage and held an arm over his throat.

"Let go of me, you dummy! You don't want me! You should grab one of the ladies!"

"Shut up, you old fool!" The evil speedster glanced around. "Everyone had better back off or I'm going to vibrate this man's head off!"

Suddenly the hostage's legs began to buckle as he grabbed his chest. "My heart! My heart! Elizabeth! I'm coming, Elizabeth! It won't be long now!"

"Unhand him," said a calm but stern voice.

Johnny Quick was surprised to find that his limbs felt like they were being confined in lead. "What is this, some kind of mind trick?" What he saw was a man with two thin antennae sticking out of the top of his head.

Martin's 'nephew', Tim O'Hara stood at his side. "Do you have him, uncle Martin?"

"For now. Though he is proving harder to contain than I had earlier anticipated. I think it may have to do with his speed abilities."

Tim worked on releasing the man from the speedster's leaden grip. "Here you go, Mr. Sanford."

The black man, freed, stormed away after stomping on Johnny Quick's foot and hitting him in the gut. "I told you to let me go, dummy!"

"You won't hold me for long!" raged Johnny Quick. He began internalizing his vibrations. He would make them all pay.

"He won't have to." A furry fist smashed into his jaw knocking the villain out.

"You got him!" shouted Dash. "Wow! Are you a real werewolf or a mutant? Can I see your claws? Do you howl at the moon? Hey, I thought your kind only turned into werewolves when the full moon is out?"

Scott backed away slowly from the barrage of questions, but someone had one for Dash as well.

"Hey kid," said Hyde. "That guy followed you here. What was that all about?"

Dash glanced around at them in surprise. "You don't know about the war?"

Everyone began sharing looks of concern.

Rick Marshall looked out into the jungle. "Holly. Will. Be safe and I will find you."

**AUTHOR'S NOTES**

_It's been a while but I've had a lot of things change suddenly. My family and I have just moved from Oregon to Minnesota. We are still unpacking and working on a ton of other things. _

_When I finally got a chance to write I found I couldn't. Basically I had writer's block from all the things in my life that were being tossed around like a flea at a dog kennel. Anyway, I wanted to do something with Dash, Zoom and Johnny Quick since they ran off to fight a number of chapters ago. It was supposed to be short but they I began thinking about the camp that Mr. Peabody and the others in his group had mentioned when they had helped free them from the Alien / Xenomorphs. I wondered who could be in that camp and it just built itself from there. It was fun and relaxing, plus I got to add a few more TV shows and movies._

_The next posting will be a serious chapter. Promise._

**THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES (1962 – 1971)**

Daisy 'Granny' Moses – (Irene Ryan)

Jed Clampett – (Buddy Ebsen) (mentioned only)

Elly May Clampett – (Donna Douglas) (mentioned only)

Jethro Bodine – (Max Baer Jr.) (mentioned only)

Milburn Drysdale – (Raymond Bailey) (mentioned only)

**NIGHT COURT (1984 – 1992)**

Bailiff Nostradamus 'Bull' Shannon – (Richard Moll)

**DANIEL BOONE (1964 – 1970)**

Daniel Boone – (Fess Parker) (mentioned only)

**THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF DISNEY (1954 – 1955)**

Davy Crockett – (Fess Parker) (mentioned only)

**THE LIFE AND TIMES OF GRIZZLY ADAMS (1974 – 1978)**

Mad Jack – (Denver Pyle) (mentioned only)

Number 7 (mentioned only)

**SOUTH PARK (1997 - ?)**

Kenny (mentioned only)

Cartman (mentioned only)

Kyle (mentioned only)

Stan (mentioned only)

**MONK (2002 – present)**

Adrian Monk – (Tony Shalhoub)

**MY FAVORITE MARTIAN (1963 – 1966)**

Uncle Martin – (Ray Walston)

Tim O'Hara – (Bill Bixby)

**ARCHIE COMICS**

Archie Andrews

Jughead Jones

Hotdog

Betty Cooper

Veronica Lodge

**TEEN WOLF (1985)**

Scott Howard – (Michael J. Fox)

**MR. MAGOO (1997)**

Mr. Magoo – (Leslie Nielsen)

**SEINFELD (1990 – 1998)**

Cosmo Kramer – (Michael Richards)

**FRIENDS (1994 – 2004)**

Dr. Ross Geller – (David Schwimmer)

Rachel Green – (Jennifer Aniston) (mentioned only)

Emma Green (mentioned only)

**THAT '70's SHOW (1998 – 2006)**

Jackie Burkhart – (Mila Kunis)

Steven Hyde – (Danny Masterson)

Donna Pinciotti – (Laura Prepon)

Fez – (Wilmer Valderrama)

Michael Kelso – (Ashton Kutcher)

Eric Forman – Topher Grace)

**SANFORD AND SON (1972 – 1977)**

Fred G. Sanford – (Redd Foxx)


	25. Chapter 25

**A Tangled Web Part 8 **

**Chapter 25**

_**Note:**__ This chapter will cover some of the fighters in the Doctors' Army who had already encountered the Borg in earlier parts of my story. Since many of these characters haven't been mentioned for years (_this series started in 1997 I think…Could have been 1998 but you get the idea_), I will just do a quick rundown of who some of the featured Borg fighters were and where they had first encountered the Borg. Let's see…_

_In the first TANGLED WEB is where the SLIDERS group bounces off the TARDIS belonging to DOCTOR WHO knocking them into the STAR TREK universe. Q thought it would be funny to interfere so he helped the Borg to learn about the device used to move throughout the multiverse. Once the Borg obtained that technology the Q Continuum made Q take responsibility for the situation and have to fix it but not directly. _

_When the Borg came to Coruscant in A TANGLED WEB 2 they faced groups from BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, SIX-MILLION DOLLAR MAN and GREATEST AMERICAN HERO._

_In A TANGLED WEB 3 took the Borg to ancient Greece of the worlds of XENA and HERCULES. Help was recruited by way of the A-TEAM and SEAQUEST._

_BATTLESTAR GALACTICA meets V-THE SERIES as well as an alternate version of STARGATE SG-1 in A TANGLED WEB 4. Aid came from QUANTUM LEAP and STARMAN._

_A TANGLED WEB 5 focused on a world populated with secret agents, cops and detectives from numerous TV shows as well as Immortals from Highlander. Characters from SMALLVILLE and BABYLON 5/CRUSADE were both brought to this parallel world to face the Borg._

_A TANGLED WEB 6 took place on the PLANET OF THE APES populated with Gorillas, Chimpanzees, and Orangutans in Australia alongside characters from MAD MAX/BEYOND THUNDERDOME. Help is supplied from ROBOCOP, MAX HEADROOM, GARGOYLES and Vincent from BEAUTY AND THE BEAST._

_A TANGLED WEB 7 occurred in the late 1800's in California using many Western TV characters. Aid was brought in from characters from DUE SOUTH, ALIEN NATION alongside several heroes from the late 1930's such as TARZAN, INDIANA JONES, THE GREEN HORNET and KATO. _

_And now we are in the LAND OF THE LOST. Hopefully that was helpful for some of you readers._

_**What has come before in A TANGLED WEB 8**_: The Doctors - his incarnations 1 thru 10 - have gathered an army from throughout the multiverse to stop the spread of the Borg. Those volunteers that had no prior experience against the Borg were to face off with the army of the Master, while the fighters who had already fought the Borg were asked to use their experience to try destroy the Borg … or die trying. Among those facing the Borg were the Colonial Warriors of the Twelve Colonies; Amazons led by Gabrielle and Ephiny; the lizard-like Visitors and the Human Freedom Fighters they had once fought against; the crew of the SeaQuest; the Gorillas, Chimpanzees, Orangutans and Humans that made up the New Eden Militia; Goliath's clan of Gargoyles; a mixture of Humans and Minbari came from Babylon 5; the new fighting force of the Defenders which had been formed by many of those that had been attacked by the Borg during a law enforcement convention, and many others.

But even with their numbers battling against the Borg were finding it to be more difficult than they had first anticipated. The Doctor, the sixth incarnation to be specific, was the first to understand. "They've been holding back! Watch yourselves!" He pulled his companion, Mel, back behind the shelter of a large boulder as a major blitz of various beams of energy were exchanged along with a variety of projectile weaponry. "This is a bit of a sticky-wicket, isn't it?"

Mel nodded even as she struggled to catch her breath. "It's almost as if they had been expecting us."

Indeed the Borg Queen had been expecting a mass attack. Having gleamed some of the knowledge and personality of the Doctor's fourth incarnation on their early encounter in the 1890's of Stockton, CA of an alternate reality, she had been able to anticipate that he would come after the Borg and bring reinforcements. For this reason she had not only held back a reserve of her forces, but had kept some of new drones with more unusual weapons and defenses from being seen in order to surprise her attackers.

The information she had learned from some of the recent drones that she had obtained proved most tantalizing. After taking over Gallifrey, she would try to locate those parallel worlds in order to assimilate those technologies. She was especially interested in taking over the Green Lantern Corps, Castle Greyskull, and the Autobots.

Using her drone of Darien Lambert, a police detective from the late 22nd century, a time pellet was fired and struck the attacking form of Clark Kent in the chest; the time pellet had been originally used by Lambert to transport time-traveling criminals back to the time they came from. An energy field encased the young Krytonian, and then, through the Borg Queen's connection with the assimilated connection with the Specified Encapsulated Limitless Memory Archive, otherwise known as SELMA, the Borg Queen projected Clark two hundred years into the future where she planned on being ready and waiting for his arrival. There she would be able to capture and assimilate him into the Collective with little difficulty, as her forces would be in place controlling all of the Land of the Lost. She also made plans to gain more of the unique elements needed for the time projecting device from Lambert's reality.

Ralph Hinkley, a superhero who had never thought up a name for his alter ego even though he wore a red spandex costume that supplied him superpowers, had seen what had happened to Clark, and had assumed that the young hero in the rough had been disintegrated. Facing his fears, he rushed forward to make short work of the threat before anyone else could be harmed. Yet the Borg had been prepared for people traveling at super-speed and Ralph bounced off a force field. As Ralph managed to stand up, he quickly ascertained that he was trapped on all sides by a cage like force field. Needing to get out, he jumped up and flew up and over the force field barrier only to be struck by three photon beams that blasted him back into the jungle.

The ringed metal chakrum thrown by Xena struck the Darien Lambert drone's hand that had been firing time pellets at other targets, destroying the device, but not before it had sent two of Gabrielle's Amazons, the Gargoyle Brooklyn, three of the Gorillas and a Chimpanzee of the militia volunteers from New Eden, Mike Donavan, three of the Visitor soldiers and Stringfellow Hawke to the future as well.

In retaliation of the missing men, Hercules lifted a massive boulder and threw it into a throng of drones. One of the newly processed drones, one of the team of adventurers know as the Bionic Six, Sport-1, lifted his arm and used his electro-magnetic abilities to repel the boulder back at the attackers where Goliath leapt up and smashed it away with his fist showering the Borg with rock fragments.

OSI agent, Steve Austin, barreled into a group of drones, knocking them over with his bionic fist. He was caught off guard when one of the drones, who had been IQ of the Bionic Six, fought back with a strength that rivaled his own.

"Resistance is futile," said the IQ drone as the tubules in his arm extended out to make contact with the cyborg agent.

"Resist this!" Steve spun and kicked, knocking the prosthetic arm partially off what remained of IQ's left arm.

Seeing the damage, Steve almost felt like he should apologize. But the drone was not out of the game. It lashed out with the tubules of his right hand. Steve managed to catch the drone's wrist with his bionic hand. "That's how one of you guys got me last time. You aren't the only ones to learn from past mistakes." He twisted his hand, breaking the drone's wrist, which he knew wouldn't put it out of action for long.

"Sorry about this," he said, before reaching out to pull some components out of the drone's chest. "I hope this only incapacitates you until we can make you Human again; if not, well…"

He rolled away as the elderly Gargoyle Hudson came crashing down out of the sky, having been stunned. The former astronaut checked to make sure that the Gargoyle was breathing. They had met in the TARDIS as it made it's way to pick up more fighters. Steve had shared his pictures of his wife, Jamie, and their baby, Rudy, named after Rudy Welles, a family friend as well as the creator of bionics.

"Hudson?" Steve rolled the Gargoyle over so that he was facing up. "C'mon, buddy. We've got to face the bad guys."

A movement off to his right drew his attention. He looked up to see a drone aiming at him when something leaped over Steve and onto the drone.

The young boy riding on top of the canine Gargoyle waved his machete in the air, loping off the tubules. "You got him, Bronx!"

Steve's mind raced to remember the boy's name. "Kenny?"

"Bronx and I'll get Hudson out of here, Col. Austin. Don't worry about a thing," answered Kenny, the forever youthful Immortal.

"It's too dangerous!" shouted the bionic man.

Two of their allies saw what was happening with Hudson and hurried over to lend a hand. The first was a dark-haired white man wearing a tuxedo of all things; the other was a large dark African man who wore a cheetah skin draped over his chest. Steve had met them on the TARDIS, when he overheard them discussing they had recently had with an invading Martian fleet.

"I'll distract them," said Mandrake the Magician, "you two lift the Gargoyle onto the other Gargoyle's back."

Mandrake stood in order to get the drones attention.

"Hurry," commanded Lothar. Steve and Lothar struggled to get the limp Gargoyle's body up so that they could drape it over Bronx's back. As heavy as Hudson was, Steve couldn't imagine lifting him up without his cybernetic strength. He looked with respect at Lothar's powerful frame, wondering if he had been cybernetically enhanced, too, or if he came by his strength honestly.

Looking back to see how Mandrake was doing, Steve was surprised to see that the nearest Borg drones appeared to be sinking into the ground as if they had just stepped into quicksand. He blinked because something didn't seem right with the image. Concentrating, he realized that he could see through the illusion with his bionic eye. And if he could tell that it was an illusion, then the Borg could, too.

To the magician's surprise, a drone's stun beam struck Mandrake in the chest, and he fell. Steve, using his bionicly enhanced speed, caught him before he hit the ground. "Get to cover!" the former astronaut shouted, hoisting the magician on his shoulder while leaving the master illusionist's hat where it fell. Seeing one of the Visitors down, Steve passed the burden of the unconscious Mandrake to Mandrake's friend, Lothar. Then Steve jumped the thirty-five feet to the downed alien, knocking down the drone standing near him. As he was about to pick up the downed man, he saw that he was already too late. The Visitor convulsed, tearing the false outer skin exposing the green scales and the grayish veins that were spreading underneath them. "Sorry," Steve said. He took the energy rifle from the newly forming drone and bounded after the others, hoping to regroup.

Also on the field of battle, Elizabeth led a troop of her people who still chose to call themselves Visitors, which is much easier to pronounce with the Human tongue than what they called themselves. She paused only to erect psionic shields in order to deflect energy burst back at those who had fired on her. Ham Tyler directed some of his fighters to take position in key places to try hem in the Borg.

"They won't survive out there!" proclaimed Elizabeth.

"Nonsense," replied Tyler. "There is plenty of protection with all these big boulders all around." He saw his mistake too late as some of the drones being fired on from his people returned fire and vaporized the boulders as well as the people behind them. "Okay, I've underestimated them a little."

"The only reason they aren't blasting all of us like that is because they want to assimilate as many of us as possible," explained Julie Parrish.

"Yeah, well, let them assimilate this!" Tyler tossed two grenades deep into Borg territory. The resounding explosion tossed some of the drones around. Those not killed outright began repairs on the minor damage that they had sustained.

"Don't give them a chance to recover!" shouted another new arrival. Hannibal Smith, of the A-Team, tossed a Molotov cocktail from a bottle of Romulan ale that he had obtained while in the TARDIS. The powerful explosion tossed more drones, adding to the damage by catching a few on fire as well.

"That won't distract them for long!" shouted Elisa Maza. She blasted away with a mystical weapon that she had commandeered from David Xanatos. The Alchemy Gun's effects depending on what the person was thinking of at the time. One drone became glass, and another became a puddle of nitroglycerine, the third became a pillar of magnesium. "Everybody down!"

The resulting explosion rocked everyone. The magnesium flare up had ignited the kerosene. The explosion of nitroglycerine had caused fragments of the glass drone to fly around.

"Whose side are you on, lady?" shouted Hannibal. His words caught in his throat when he saw the hunk of glass impaled in her abdomen.

"Didn't think … it would be that dangerous." She grimaced again before passing out.

Tyler looked for Juliet Parrish or Elizabeth but they had already moved on to another battle. While Smith provided him with cover, Tyler moved to pull the chunk of glass out. At the last moment a hand touched him on his shoulder. Paul Forrester leaned down next to Eliza. "If you pull the glass out now, she will bleed to death. Let me do it my way."

The Starman placed one hand on the glass and in his other hand he held a metallic marble. Paul closed his eyes in concentration.

Tyler, seeing that the Borg weren't going to wait for whatever Paul was doing, he took the Alchemy Gun and began firing. Two drones turned to tin; another became a pillar of salt. "Ha! I feel like I'm in a video game!" Tyler said, turning another drone to aluminum. Realizing he made a pretty good target, he aimed the mystical weapon at the ground in front of him forming an iron wall between him and the Borg.

Glancing back, he noted a glow from behind him. Light shown from a metal ball in Paul's hand as well as from the wound itself. As Paul extracted the glass, the gaping wound seemed to heal closed, leaving not even a mark.

"I think I'd like to sign up with your medical program," Tyler admitted.

"You're not the only one," said Smith, eyeing the miraculous healing with wonder. "We sure could have used someone like you in 'Nam."

"Uhhhh." Elisa's eyes fluttered open. "What?!?"

"Hello," Paul said, extending a hand to help her up.

"I thought…" She stared at the hole in her blouse. "Then … I had died?" She glanced just past them. "Didn't I just talk to you?"

"YES," said a new voice.

Tyler and Smith reacted instantly, pointing their weapons at the tall, extremely gaunt figure in the dark robes. Neither had recalled seen him on the battlefield, but at the same time he seemed very familiar to both of them.

"All right, buddy. No sudden moves with that scythe."

"DO NOT CONCERN YOURSELF WITH MY TOOL OF THE TRADE, HANNIBAL SMITH. YOU ARE NOT SCHEDUALED FOR A FINAL VISIT FOR A NUMBER OF YEARS."

Smith chomped hard of his cigar and eased his weapon down. "That's nice to hear. I take it you are the incarnation of Death around these parts?"

"YES," came the reaper's answer. "THOUGH THIS IS NOT MY NORMAL REALM. I AM HERE ON WHAT YOU WOULD CALL A WORKING VACATION."

"Wait a moment," Tyler interrupted, turned to Col. Smith while keeping his weapon aimed at the skeletal form. "You believe this guy is actually Death?"

Hannibal grinned. "I've just spent the last four years living in ancient Greece on an alternate universe where they actually have Greek deities running around acting almighty and spoiled. Me and two of my men even went down into the depths of Hades itself and brought out our friend who had died the year before after being turned to stone from seeing a gorgon. So yeah, I'm ok with the idea of Death coming down to ask some questions in the middle of a battle."

Tyler frowned. "I think you might have lost your marbles along the way here but I've seen too many off the wall things to really judge anyone else's grasp on reality."

"IF WE COULD STICK TO THE MATTER AT HAND," interrupted Death. "I WAS WONDERING IF YOU WOULD EXPLAIN HOW ELISA MAZA HAD HER LIFE CORD REATTACHED AFTER I HAD SEVERED IT AS IS MY DUTY."

"That would be my doing," answered Paul Forrester. He had never met an avatar of death before, but his people did have legends of encounters with such beings. And they were not to be taken lightly.

"AND HOW WAS THIS ACCOMPLISHED?" The extremely gaunt man did not seem angry or even upset that his work had been undone, though it was hard to determine what emotion he was feeing with such a bony visage, yet something in the eyes did suggest curiosity.

"By reweaving the tether while repairing the body," answered Paul.

"BUT IS THAT FAIR?" answered Death. "HER TIME WAS UP. HER LIFE LINE TO THIS WORLD HAD BEEN CUT. WITH MY AID, SHE HAS SHOD OFF THIS MORTAL COIL ONLY TO BE ENTRAPPED IN IT AGAIN BY YOU."

"And some day she will die again," pointed out Paul. "I do not stop the function of death; to do so would be unnatural and foolhardy. I merely postponed it."

"HMM." Death contemplated this while tapping his fingers against his jawbone, making an odd, disturbing sound to the others. Both he and the alien Paul Forrester were strangers to this pocket dimension. So they both were following the rules as they understood them from their home worlds. "I WOULD LIKE TO TALK TO YOU MORE ABOUT WHAT YOU DO AND WHY, BUT EVENTS LIKE THIS ARE USUALLY VERY BUSY FOR ME AS I HAVE A NUMBER OF PEOPLE THAT I NEED TO ATTEND TO." He paused, regarding Paul for a moment. "ALONE, IF YOU DON'T MIND."

The skeletal man in the dark cloak turned moving across the field as combatants, ignorant of his presence, battled all around him. He pulled out a small hourglass, glanced around to confirm that he was at precisely the right space. Then as a Borg blasts caused a nearby boulder to blow up, one of the Orangutan Ape fighters that had been using it as cover was blown backwards up into the air. Death sliced upward with his scythe, cutting the silvery cord that had still tethered the spirit to the broken mortal form. The startled spirit gave a quick 'Ook?' before fading away.

Death glanced over to where Paul Forrester had been. But his concerns proved to be groundless as the starman was otherwise engaged in healing one of the injured Amazons while others fought hard to shield him as he worked.

Seeing that he had a few minutes before he was required to reap another soul, Death walked past a few combatants to where his golf ball had landed after it had bounced off of Mr. Atom's metal shell and into this combat zone. "I WONDER IF I SHOULD TAKE A MULLIGAN?"

The golf ball had somehow landed among the numerous gold necklaces that were worn by a large black man with a mohawk haircut who laid stunned on the ground. Death considered taking the shot but realized that if he swung in the manner that would not harm the man or his necklaces, the shot would take him in the wrong direction. He considered asking Gomez Addams or Herman Munster but he could see that they were both busy; Gomez was happily engaged fencing with a golf club against the Batman foe, the Cavalier while Herman was giving a bear hug to Grizzlor of Hordak's Evil Horde.

He took another look around to see where the other members of their golf party were. Herman's father, who insisted everyone call him Grandpa, was locked in what seemed to be a passionate embrace with Circe, one of the notorious long-lived Humans. The butler, Lurch, was being tossed around by the seven year old powerhouse Cindy Collins, who was dressed in a pink frilly princess dress. Fester was joyfully being electrocuted by the villain known as Deathbolt; each time the electrical villain blasted Fester down the bald man would just get up laughing and ask for more.

The one person Death couldn't seem to find was Rincewind and his wandering Luggage. On a hunch, Death took out the hourglass that he used to measure Rincewind's remaining life. The grains of sand flowing backwards didn't really surprise him as much as made him wonder how it was happening.

Shaking his head, Death tucked the hourglass away and decided to take the shot. He lined himself up to take the swing on the golf ball resting on B.A.'s chest. Checking for obstacle in the ball's path, Death's eye, relatively speaking, spotted Dominic Santini, one of the Airwolf pilots who was also a young Immortal, had resorted to using his sword against one of the female Power Rangers drones who was using her ranger sword along with her Borg prosthetic arm. "THERE SEEMS TO BE A TREND FOR PEOPLE TO NOT STAY DEAD THESE DAYS." He decided to look into that more when he got back to the discworld.

"FOUR." He drew back his scythe and --

Something flashed in front of him, yanking his scythe from Death's grip.

"THAT IS MY PROPERTY! RETURN IT TO ME AT ONCE!"

Buffy Summers, the Slayer, twirled the scythe that was now in her hands feeling its balance. "Somehow I didn't think you would go down the easy way," she said, in a casual tone.

"THE EASY WAY?" he said in confusion. Then he looked down to see a stake of wood sticking out from between two of his ribs. He pulled it out in annoyance and cast it aside. "RETURN MY SCYTHE TO ME!"

"No way, demon. On second thought, I'll give you this end of it!" She leapt forward swinging the blade toward the robed figure forcing Death to jump back.

"YOU THINK I AM A DENIZEN OF THE DUNGEON DIMENSIONS?"

She swung at him again. "In a moment it won't matter what level of hell you crawled out of." She frowned, surprised to find her target out of her reach yet again. "Geez, you're fast, whatever you are."

"'QUICK AS DEATH', IS THE APPROPRIATE ADAGE, I BELIEVE. I THINK IT HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH PEOPLE WANTING THEIR DEATHS TO HAPPEN ON TIME. YET SOME PEOPLES DEATHS ARE SLOW AND LINGERING. PERHAPS THAT IS WHY PEOPLE FOCUS ON A FASTER DYING EXPERIENCE."

"Not really up to expounding my thought on the matter with you right now," she responded as Death evaded the scythe again. She turned in frustration to slash at an intruding Sleestak drone with the mythical weapon. To her amazement Buffy gapped as the drone fell in half having been cut in half with as easily as cutting through air. "My God, that is the sheerest cut I have ever seen!" She gulped air as some of the organs and various liquids began to slide or pour out. "And perhaps one of the more disturbing sights as well."

She turned her attention back to the grim reaper who now somehow had a horse beside him.

"AH, THANK YOU, BINKY." Death ran his bony fingers through his horse's mane. With his other hand he drew out his other weapon, a bone colored sword. "YES, THIS SHOULD GIVE ME BACK MY EDGE."

In a rush of movement scythe met sword in a fury that seemed to cut the very air around the Reaper of Death and slayer of creatures of the night.

Seizing the opportunity, three men hurried forward to where B.A. Baracus lay on the ground. Templeton 'Faceman' Peck shook B.A. gently, but failing to get a response he tried slapping him across the face. "Come on, B.A., snap out of it!" He tried finding a pulse on his neck but there were too many gold chains in the way so he looked for a pulse on his wrist instead. "Well, he's alive. I think he's just stunned like the others."

"Let's get him out of here then," answered Starbuck to his doppelganger. Both men looked almost exactly alike, although their lives could not have started off any more different. 'Faceman' had been a soldier in Vietnam as well as an extremely well con-man; Starbuck was one of the best Viper pilots of a lost in space colony of Humans that had been trying to desperately find their way back to reunite with their lost cousins on Earth.

Both men struggled to get the larger muscular man up while the third man, Iolaus, worked on providing them cover. "Hurry it up, you two!" Iolaus called as he sent a drone crashing into two others.

Starbuck grunted. "I don't suppose he'd mind if we took off some of his gold necklaces weighing him down?"

Peck almost laughed. "I pity the fool that tries that."

"Umf, yeah, he doesn't seem like a very reasonable fellow."

"Hey, Face," called Iolaus. "That skeleton guy that Buffy is fighting, does he remind you of Charon, the ferryman for the dead?"

Despite their haste, Peck looked back to where Buffy faced Death. "Hate to say it, but I think you look more like Charon than that guy," he said, remembering his voyage to the Elysian Fields as well as the trip back.

"Hey!" said the insulted Greek. "What do-" A stun beam struck him in the chest ending his inquiry.

"Iolaus?" Starbuck glanced back just in time to see Iolaus hit the ground. "Frak! Face, take B.A., I'll get Iolaus!"

"Waitaminute!" Templeton Peck could not waste words as he was doing everything he could to hold up the dead weight of his very heavy, muscular friend. "Geez, B.A., you really have to cut down on the gold necklaces." He could feel his awkward grip slipping even as his knees began to tremble. "I really could use a little help around here!"

"One moment, Face."

Peck looked over to see Dagger throwing a drone into two others in an effort to give them some breathing room. Dagger was not one of Face's favorite people; not that he had any real reason to dislike him. It was just that he felt uncomfortable in his presence. Dagger was the result of an accident caused by the Greek goddess Aphrodite that merged Joxer, Tim O'Neill and Dagwood into one large composite being that could not be separated. Instead, the new being, Dagger, stayed in ancient Greece and after a number of adventures later became the consort of Gabrielle, the Queen of the Amazons. Face wasn't sure what it was about Dagger that he didn't like, but if he had to guess he'd say it was the 3-in-one man's face; he couldn't read it like he could everyone else.

Dagger picked up B.A. as easy as if he had picked up a child and put him over his shoulder. "I/We have him. The Doctor says we need to retreat."

Face took the moment to duck down low and shoot at some oncoming drones. "As much as I'd like to get out of here, I think we might not have much choice. We're being blocked in."

"What?" asked Starbuck who now came over bearing the weight of Iolaus.

"The Borg are cutting off our retreat!" Face said, now mad. "We're trapped here."

"You're wrong," said Dagger. He pointed over where they had just come. "The drones over there are on our side."

Smallville's Luthor had been transformed into a drone while trying to stop the Borg from overtaking a convention center in the Seacouver of a parallel world. Due to a unique shattering of the Borg Collective by the techno-mage Galen, Lex had survived in a shard of the Collective and took it over, taking the new name of Brainiac. For the past few months he had stayed in that world reverting drones back to their Human singularities as well as rendering the new volcano that had erupted in the city inert. He retained eight of the surviving drones that had been mentally damaged enough that they could not function unconnected to him. They were his arms, legs, ears and eyes.

Having anticipated coming in contact with the Borg again some day, Brainiac had made sure that the Collective mind controlled by the Borg Queen would not be able to gain control of him or the drones under his control. In addition he had modified his nano-probes to incapacitate other drones while modifying the drone to respond solely to his commands.

Beside him came Robocop, a cyborg police officer from another parallel world. Robocop had faced the Borg in Australia where biologically engineered Apes of various types had risen up to take over the world. The cyborg officer had been partially disabled after one of the first Borg encounters. Fortunately, the Doctor had been able to use a few Borg spare parts to not only save him, but to give him a considerable upgrade that included sensors and shielding. Lex had offered to tie him in to his Collective but the officer had declined.

Dureena Nafeel, the apprentice of the techno-mage Galen, had been injected with nano-probes on the same Earth that Lex had, but she had not been 'converted' physically. Instead, she used what she had learned as an apprentice to overcome the Borg nanites in her body and control them, and in doing so learned a great deal about the Borg and applied it to her knowledge of techno-mage technology, and in doing so, changing her relationship with Galen - the student becoming the teacher – on many points in science, much to Galen's delight.

Galen had tried to use the same means he had used previously to cripple the Collective mind of the Borg but since the Borg had partially absorbed some of the Doctor's memories, they knew what kind of attack to expect from the techno-mage. Instead, Galen had to go on the defensive as he followed Brainiac's lead. He used mirror weapons or cloud walls to keep from being harmed by blasts from the Borg. He had also fashioned a large dragon made of neon green light that blew fire at the nearest drones to provide cover for Dagger and the others to get the wounded by to safety.

"You seem to be using dragon images a lot lately," commented Dureena, as she administered nanites to stop the Borg assimilation of three of stunned allies, Commander Jonathan Ford, Miguel Ortiz and Tony Piccolo until they can be checked and given a clean bill of health later.

Galen's look was grim. "I tend to do that when facing such an upsetting situation." He touched each of the unconscious men and they floated up on a bed of light that became a wagon being pulled by two large horses. The horses trotted after Dagger and the others toward safety.

"I just meant that you should try to be more creative." A ball of blue fire appeared in her right hand. She drew back, and sent to rolling like it was a bowling ball, but this bowling ball was on fire and growing rapidly as it approached a group of Sleestak drones bearing down on them. If didn't so much strike the drones as it did flow over them as it they were being hit by a wall of water.

"That was more than just an impact related attack. What else was there in that attack?" Galen studied a small crystal ball in the palm of his hand. Numbers of various colors scrolled up and down in the small glass object.

"Hard to slip anything past you." She smiled. "Nanites. My own special brand made for the special task of taking those drone off line until this is over and they can be returned to whatever is normal for them."

They repelled to more drones while pressing forward. "Brainiac looks like he might need a hand."

Lex had lost a drone as he faced off against a drone that had been fashioned between the Taelon Zo'or and the large Gorilla robot FLUFFI, who had been sort of a pet of the Bionic Six. Electrical energy poured out of the Taelon part of the drone forcing Brainiac to shield himself.

"That isn't anything like the drones we encountered before," commented the techno-mage.

"The Borg Queen was probably counting on that, so she made sure to have some unusual ones to catch us off guard." She began to do a preliminary scan of the unusual drone that Lex and his drones were facing off against. "It has massive power output."

Galen looked into the crystal ball in his hand. "What's that other signal?"

She paused as she studied the wavelengths around them. "It's not mine. It's the Borg, but not from the thing facing Lex. The signal is being directed at…" She turned toward Robocop just as the cyborg cop fired a series of shots at her. Her body flew back hitting the ground.

Galen managed to shield himself with his already erected barriers. With this in place, he stepped between his fallen apprentice and the attacking Robocop. "What have you done!?!"

Robocop's head was twitching horribly as the remaining Human part of him fought the cybernetic half. "Can't…control…actions!" His cybernetic hands fired of more rounds against the side of Galen's shield before turning to fire on Luthor and his drones. Two of Lex's drones stepped in the way in order to shield Lex only to be shot down in his place. The Zo'or/FLUFFI drone pushed forward to get to the enemy drones, killing another of Lex's drones in the attempt.

Before Robocop could fire again, the Gargoyle Brooklyn, flying overhead had seen what was happening, swooped down, knocking Robocop back a few feet. The Gargoyle moved to grapple with the Borg controlled cyborg law officer only to be hit by three separate stun beams from nearby drones, dropping him.

Galen used the opportunity to send a ball of fire that engulfed the possessed cyborg cop. The heat fused all of the external cybernetic joints while not harming the exposed Human tissues. The techno-mage had to erect another barrier to save himself from another volley of beams that started to push him back. Feeling desperate, he took out a tiny box from a pocket and tossed it through his shield and into the midst of a group of oncoming drones. Green scaly holographic creatures exited the box and grew to about two feet in height and scampered onto the drones, pulling tubes, parts of machinery and random biting. Each of the savage beasts bore a small collar with a small white chip that provided their energy source as well as their instructions. The small holographic monsters were based on a very troublesome creature that early members of his order had encountered on Earth in the late 20th century called Gremlins. The techno-mage knew that they wouldn't last long against the Borg, but they would prove to be a big enough distraction while Galen sought to stabilize Dureena and get her to safety.

Kit Walker, known to those around him as the Phantom, held up Harry Tasker with his arm over his shoulder while on the other side of Harry was his wife, Helen Tasker, also helping to hold him up as they dragged him to safety. Unfortunately, Helen was struck by a blast from behind and fell. The purple clad masked Phantom almost dropped Harry, but managed to keep the knocked out man from hitting the ground.

"Hey! Help over here!" he yelled.

The quick response came in the arrival of the Minbari Lennier. "You are one of those people that live on other planets, right?" asked the Phantom.

"Do you wish to wait for someone from your planet to come render aid?" The Minbari bent down to see if Helen was still alive.

"Nope," grinned the Phantom. "I'm just still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that there is life out there around the stars."

Lennier was surprised to see such a positive reaction from the Earthling instead of the suspicious, possibly racist, one that it was his experience to encounter. "I am Lennier and my people are the Minbari." Lennier moved to pick Helen up but was stunned by a Borg stun beam.

"Lennier? Dammit!" The Phantom weighed what he should do. Carry Harry to safety? Or Helen? Harry would have probably insisted on it if he had been awake. "Sorry Harry," he said, as he eased the large man to the ground. "I'll come back for you." He stepped around Lennier in order to pick up Helen only to suddenly be stunned as well. Nobody else seemed to have seen them.

Everywhere people were falling on the field. Detective George Francisco was one of the first to be led away to be assimilated, followed by Frank Parker, the Green Hornet, Kato, Ethan Hunt, two of the Gorillas, three Amazons, one Colonial Warrior, and six of the Visitors. The next wave to fall included Samantha Carter, A.J. Simon, Edison Carter, the Gargoyle Angela, Lord Bowler, one of the Human freedom fighters, two Visitors, a Chimpanzee, two more Colonial Warriors, three Minbari Rangers and four volunteers from the Seaquest.

Cliff Secord, known to those currently around him as the Rocketeer, charged forward knocking over a drone that had been leaning over one of Secord's new allies. Pulling his gun, he brought it in past the drone's shielding and fired twice, killing the Black Power Ranger drone. He looked back, sickened to note that his new friend Marcus Cole, a Ranger from the space station Babylon 5, had grayish veins spreading across his face.

"Ah, dammit!" Cliff took of his helmet and tried to think of what he could do. At the gathering in the TARDIS a few people had mentioned that they would rather die then let the Borg turn them into zombie-like drones; Cliff wasn't sure what Cole's view had been, but he wasn't sure that he could have committed cold-blooded murder even if he knew that that had been Cole's preference.

"Here, let me," said Leela as she hurried over. Leela had been one of the Doctor's companions who had quite a number of encounters with the Borg.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing to what the leather clad woman held in her hand.

"A Janus thorn. It will end his life painlessly."

"Whoa now! Just a minute! What if he doesn't want to die?"

"What he is about to go through will even be worse," said the former companion of the Doctor.

"How do you know that?"

She frowned, not liking the fact that her actions were being questioned. "Because I have talked to some people that had been drones before. Most of them stressed that death was very much preferable."

The Rocketeer nodded. "So the zombie thing they do to people can be undone. Good to know."

She glanced around at the chaos around them not understanding why this man with the weird helmet chose now to try debate such issues.

A drone came around a large boulder, turned toward them and aimed. Suddenly, a figure tackled the drone from behind knocking it to the ground and then savagely bashed in it's head.

"Max! Good save." She turned and fired her plasma rifle at another drone, but it's shields had already adjusted to the weapon's energy frequency. She bent down as she recalibrated the frequency of her rifle.

Max jumped down next to her after shooting the drone that her weapon hadn't worked on. "What's going on over her?" he asked. "When

I saw that you weren't further on I thought the worst."

Leela smiled. She and Max had only been married a few months but they knew each other very well as they were very like minded. They had met when she and the Doctor had gone to help get rid of the Borg on a version of the Earth that had been taken over from man by intelligent Apes. The Doctor had been sad to see her go but he was not alone as he had just taken on the Immortal boy Kenny as his new traveling companion. "He does not want his Borg controlled friend to be killed."

Max nodded. He'd seen arguments like this get really ugly really fast. He glanced over at the grayish face of Marcus who was starting to sit up. Max knocked the feet out from under the pre-drone. He looked Cliff in the eyes. "He's your responsibility now. You can kill him, tie him up or sit on him; I don't care. Just don't let him get up or he will be just another cog that will be used against the rest of us."

To emphasize his point, he turned and shot down a young Gorilla that had been infected with Borg nanites and was holding a struggling Orangutan as a fully processed drone walked toward them with it's tubules extended.

The Rocketeer felt the weapon in his hand becoming heavier and heavier with each passing moment. His decision for the life or death of another.

"Damn it!" swore Max. "They got Hercules and that red costumed guy!

We are being slaughtered out here!"

Max glanced back at the Rocketeer. "That thing on your back let's you fly, right?"

"Uh, yeah. That's why I'm called the-"

"I don't give a damn what you call yourself. Just fly back to where the TARDIS was and let them know that we need reinforcements now or this battle was all for nothing!"

"But who do I-"

Before he could finish his question, one of the drones that had previously been one of the super-villains known as the Icicle encased Max and Leela in a sheath of ice. The Rocketeer leapt back just in time to escape with just a touch of frostbite.

Keeping the ice barrier between him and the Icicle-drone, the Rocketeer made ready to fly. As he punched the button of his rocket-backpack, the Borg controlled drone of Marcus Cole grabbed onto him by his legs after knocking Cliff's weapon out of his hand. They flew up high above the chaos, almost colliding with the Horde drone of Vultak who had been chasing the small Gargoyle Lexington all over the sky.

Vultak flew after the Rocketeer and Cole, Lexington gave chase. The Rocketeer's erratic flight proved to his advantage as it proved impossible for the Vultak drone to stay on target in it's attempt to shoot him down. In fact it came around to the point that they flew into Lexington who grabbed on for all he was worth.

"You sure fly fast!" commented Lexington from where he clung desperately to the Rocketeer's helmet.

"I can't see!"

"Go up!" shouted the small Gargoyle.

"Which way is up?"

Lexington twisted the helmet the way that he wanted to go and they turned.

"Not so hard. I'd like to keep me head attacked."

"What should I do with the Borg infected guy hanging on to your legs?"

"Get him off or we'll crash for sure!"

The small Gargoyle crawled down the front of Cliff's body until he was almost face to face with the drone hanging on to the Rocketeer's legs. Taking a breath, Lexington let go and let the two men fly past him and at the last minute, grabbed onto Marcus Cole's head and let his wings open so that he peeled the drone off of the Rocketeer and then let him drop.

"Hey, it worked!" shouted the little Gargoyle, just before being stunned by Vultak.

The Rocketeer tore through the sky as he flew to rescue Lexington while the Vultak-drone fired upon him.

"Nuts!" He flew on knowing that to do so meant almost certain death. "I need a miracle."

Suddenly, blast erupted around the flying drone. Glancing back, the Rocketeer saw the large space dragon Zok of the Herculoids shooting blasts from it's eyes and tail at the drone. "Now that's what I'd talking about!" Cliff flew on managing to snag one of Lexington's back feet and then pulled out of the dive. Looking down he saw where Viltak crashed into the ground.

"Hey, thanks!" he shouted to the dragon. Wrapping an arm around the limp Gargoyle's waist, the Rocketeer flew back to where the TARDIS had been only to find it gone and to find an even more chaotic battle going on below him. "I've got a bad feeling about this."

**AUTHOR'S NOTES: **

_It's been a long, long time but I'm finally writing again. Sorry about the wait; I just haven't been taking being handicapped very well. That and a number of other life objects have been hitting the fan lately. That all said, I could really use some fan reviews to cheer me up. Hope everything's well with everyone else out there. _

_I am deliriously happy that the old 70's show 'LAND OF THE LOST' that I have been using as my current setting for my story is now remade into a movie which opens in theaters in May. I've just seen the previews for the movie and it is way campier than I expected. I still think I'll like it – unless deep down I discover I am just too much of a purist for the 70's TV show._

_Okay, the only reason I mentioned Charon is because I recently learned that the same actor, Michael Hurst, who played Iolaus had also played Charon, the ferryman across the river Styx for the dead._

_I also thought it would be kinda fun to have the A-Team bust Face out of the Elysian Fields which is supposed to be a sort of Greek heaven-like afterlife place. _

_And, yes, I made up the alchemy gun used by Elisa Maza; but you have to admit that it would be something that she would want to take away from Xanatos or some other enemy they were fighting._

_Now for the Luthor problem. I have 3 Luthor's in THE LAND OF THE LOST so I should probably remind everyone of them. The first one and the only one to be mentioned in this chapter was the Lex Luthor from the early days of SMALLVILLE. That character had been taken in A TANGLED WEB PART 5: HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH? and been turned into a drone and taken over a small splinter of the Borg Collective, he also took the new name of Brainiac. The next Lex Luthor was the one from the Legion of Doom who co-led the group with the other Superman villain, Brainiac. The third Luthor I brought in is the original in comic history, and that is Alexei Luthor from Earth-2 in DC Comics. At this point I've either clarified everything for you or confused you to the point that you just don't care anymore._

_Yes, I had Robocop be overcome by the Borg parts the Doctor had put in him back when he was on the Planet of the Apes version of my epic._

_The little holographic creatures that Galen used against the Borg were based on the creatures from Gremlins. I had wanted to use them somewhere earlier in the story so I thought I'd use this as the opportunity to do it._

**GARGOYLES (1995 – 1998)**

Hudson – (Edward Asner)

Lexington – (Thom Adcox-Hernandez)

Broadway – (Bill Fagerbakke)

Brooklyn – (Jeff Bennett)

**HERCULES: THE LEGENDARY JOURNEYS (1995 – 1999)**

**XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS (1995 – 2001)**

**YOUNG HERCULES (1998 – 1999)**

Charon – (Michael Hurst)

**SEAQUEST DSV (1993 – 1996)**

Commander Jonathan Ford – (Don Franklin)

Miguel Ortiz – (Marco Sanchez)

**GREMLINS (1984)**

Gremlins

**BABYLON 5 (1994 – 1998)**

Marcus Cole – (Jason Carter)


	26. Chapter 26

**A TANGLED WEB 8.26**

**AUTHOR's Note:**

_I have so many people in this story that I am going to try listing all the characters in each act in order to be less confusing. Please let me know if this was a good idea of not._

**ACT 1**

The Master from DOCTOR WHO

Mekanique from METROPOLIS (1927) & DC COMICS

Deadshot from DC COMICS

Trap-Jaw from MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE

Mantenna from SHE-RA

Captain Nazi from DC COMICS

The Doctor (1st incarnation) from DOCTOR WHO

Susan from DOCTOR WHO

**THE PLANET GALLIFREY – THE HOME PLANET OF THE TIME-LORDS**

The Master looked out from the balcony at the city. The awesomeness of the sight took his breath away. He had done it. He had succeeded in traveling back in time to the beginning of Gallifrey's Golden Age. He wasn't sure if the legendary Rassilon or the dreadful Pythia ruled the planet at this time, but whoever it was would soon find themselves replaced by the Master himself; that is if his luck held out just a little longer.

"Geez, would you look at this place. George Lucas would be hard pressed to top this sight."

Annoyed at his moment of reflection being interrupted, he turned to regard his bodyguards. He noted that they were all captivated by the city even as he had been. Deadshot had his mask pulled up so that he could smoke while the four-legged Mantenna had physically adapted himself with bio-oculars in order to see far away. Captain Nazi stared at the beautiful proud buildings of Gallifrey with his mouth hung open. The golden gynoid Mekanique scanned their surroundings while the cyborg Trap-Jaw held on to one of the prisoners.

"Remember yourselves, fools. Don't be dazzled by the sights or they may be the last thing you ever see." The Master noted the effect his warning had on them.

Deadshot dropped his cigarette and stepped on it, grinding the smoldering embers beneath his feet. "What should we be looking out for? You really haven't been very forthcoming about what you want us to do."

"To do? I expect you to protect me. Leave everything else to me." He could see the stupid looks in Trap-Jaw's eyes so he elaborated. "This place can be even more dangerous than the battlefield we just left. I have no idea what may attack us or even what direction it will come from, therefore you need to be diligently on guard at all times."

Having warned his now more attentive bodyguards, he regarded his old enemy. The captive time-lord seemed to be in deep concentration as he sat on a stone bench. "You can stop that now, Doctor."

The wizened Doctor, the first incarnation of the time-lord who had had his TARDIS captured by the Master during the great battle, blinked and looked up. "Whatever do you mean?"

The Master sneered at the other time-lord's attempt to look innocent. "You know as well as I do that the Gallifreyans of this time period were highly telepathic. I had a device made especially for that which creates an invisible Cone of Silence around us. It keeps sound as well as thoughts from getting out from up to many yards away."

The Doctor nodded. "That is quite brilliant."

The Master frowned. He knew from centuries of battling against the Doctor in many of his incarnations that a compliment from him meant he had thought of something else to undermine the Master. "I feel I should remind you that your beloved '_grand-daughter_' will pay with her life if you attempt anything on this venture."

The Doctor glanced to where the cyborg villain Trap-Jaw held Susan close to him, her arm clamped tight in a vise-like device on his robotic right arm.

The Master smiled. "And if you try anything at all against me, Trap-Jaw has orders to bite your precious Susan's arm off."

Trap-Jaw opened and closed his large metal jaw menacingly causing Susan to try pull away from the villain in fear and revulsion.

"Relax, my dear," the Doctor said softly. "They don't mean us any harm yet." He hoped she understood the '_yet_' part. He turned his attention to his adversary. "You're mad to attempt this," said the Doctor.

"'The greater the venture, the greater the prize," he responded. "It has always been that way. And what a prize this will be."

The Doctor nodded to the city. "And you think that they won't stop you?"

The evil time-lord laughed. "This is Gallifrey before the Time Academies were founded. Rassilon and his allies are either studying the sciences of time travel and the application of quantum principles in secret due to the reign of the sorceress Pythia, or the early years of Rassilon's rule where he is converting people to the scientific application of time travel. I doubt that they have even learned yet to modify their biodata to include Symbiotic Nuclei in order to be Time Sensitive."

"But what of the Rassilon Imprimature that allows us to withstand traveling in time? If you take over now and Rassilon hasn't set it in place, then you risk an apocalyptic paradox."

The Master smiled. "Not at all. The Rassilon Imprimature will simply become known as the Master's Imprimature. Everything of Rassilon's will be mine. I will rule all of Gallifrey at it's height! And from there the universe! And then I'll take on the Multiverse!"

The Doctor shook his head and bit his tongue to refrain from saying anything else. As the Master turned to consult with Mekanique and Mantenna about their findings, the Doctor turned to consider the city below them. What he knew of Pythia was from myths and stories told to frighten the young. She had lived for over five hundred regenerations and was the leader of a matriarchal cult that domineered over most of Gallifrey through superstition and magic. Knowing that her rule over Gallifrey was coming to an end, she committed a final suicide, but not before using her vast telepathic powers to curse her people with sterility.

It had been Rassilon who had saved the Gallifreyans from dying out by creating genetic Looms to form Gallifreyan babies; though the womb-less children had weaker telepathic abilities and did not live as long as their forefathers, they were just as incredibly intelligent and sensitive to time. If Rassilon was in power then he too could be a deadly concern as he had had to enforce very strict guidelines to stay in control as well as from keeping everything from spiraling out of control by misuse of time travel.

As these answers he sought were at least temporarily unavailable to him, he tried to once again concentrate as hard as he could to try send a mental message in the form of a memory to his eventual incarnations to let them know when and where he was. _It has to work_, he told himself, trying to remain confident.

********

**ACT 2**

Storm Shadow from G.I. JOE

Micro Lad from DC COMICS

Barbara Wright from DOCTOR WHO

Ian Chesterton from DOCTOR WHO

Invisible Girl from the INCREDIBLES

Houdini from ZOOM

Det. Kate Benson from SPECIAL UNIT 2

Agent Tom Sawyer from the LEAGUE OF EXTRA-ORDINARY GENTLEMEN

Tarra from HERCULOIDS

Dorno from HERCULOIDS

Gleep from HERCULOIDS

Concussion from ZOOM

Ethan from SKY HIGH

Lexa from MUTANT X

Frank the Pug from MEN IN BLACK

Magenta from SKY HIGH

K-9 from DOCTOR WHO

**THE TARDIS**

Magenta focused on her objective as she tried to remember everything she had been taught at her school Sky High. She tried moving slowly and using objects in the room to keep between her and the others in the room so they couldn't see her. Listening intently and gauging distance with her nose she knew that she was getting closer. Soon she would have to make her move. And she hoped that she would survive it, too.

She noted that the Master had left two guards in the TARDIS to watch over their hostages. The first she new as Micro Lad who she had captured on the battlefield earlier and brought into the TARDIS before the Master had taken it over. He was an overconfident lout with red curly hair and wore a green jumpsuit. His sole power was to shrink to a very small degree. Why he still called himself a lad when he was obviously an adult made her wonder if he had other issues which might explain his arrogance and his need to over compensate.

The other guard looked like a ninja but was dressed entirely in white. She had heard him addressed as Storm Shadow and she could tell that he disliked Micro Lad. Catching sight of him, Magenta thought he was completely dreamy but she knew he would also be the type that would have no problems in killing her with the two swords that he had strapped on his back.

The captives were all jammed together off to one side. Two of them had been placed in large glass jars due to their liquid form. The one with the yellow protoplasmic creature called Gleep had been sealed on top so that it couldn't escape. The other glass capsule held the semi-liquid form of Ethan, another Sky High student who she had been secretly dating. Ethan was still unconscious due to being electrocuted on the battlefield. While his power was to turn into a liquid puddle, after being shocked he kept shifting back and forth from solid to liquid. She hoped that it wasn't serious.

She was surprised to note that some of the captives had bags over their heads so that they couldn't see. When she noted that the hooded heroes were the Incredibles' Invisible Girl, Lexa of Mutant X, Houdini and Concussion from the Superhero Academy, she realized that those with bags on their heads had powers that might free them if they could just see. The hostages without powers had been arranged so that they encircled the others.

One of the hostages let out a groan as they began to stir. "Oh, my head." Tom Sawyer of the League of Extra-Ordinary Gentlemen blinked as he looked around. "Where are we now?"

"Silence," commanded Storm Shadow.

"Oh, damn," muttered the American agent as he realized the position he was in.

Storm Shadow drew his blade and slapped Sawyer's cheek with the flat of the blade. "Be silent or I will make you forever silent."

Agent Sawyer scowled at the threat but Barbara Wright, one of the first Doctor's companions, gave him a pleading look not to challenge the ninja. Sawyer said nothing but began looking around the interior of the TARDIS.

Magenta moved forward carefully, trying hard not to let her nails click on the floor. Her Guinea pig form that she transformed into was great for sneaking in to places but she still needed to be careful. _If I could just get among the hostages, I could chew away on the ropes binding their hands behind their backs and then we could take control of the TARDIS_, she thought.

Concussion or Invisible Girl were the ones she wanted to free first but they were right in the middle of the group of hostages so that if they did try to use their powers while the bags were over their heads, they would be at risk of hurting their comrades.

She looked back toward the hallway that she had come from. Peeking out from the corner she could see the MiB agent Frank the Pug and the muzzle of the robot they had repaired, K-9. While Frank had insisted that he could fix the small robot dog she had noticed that he seemed quite puzzled at some of the connections he had to make as he attached the head.

She gasped when Frank and K-9 hurried out to join her where she hid behind a chair. She shook her head frantically hoping they would turn back but they still came. Finally when they were next to her she whispered harshly to them. "What do you think you are doing? One of us could be lucky enough to sneak over to the others, but not the three of us. Are you trying to get us caught?"

"Yeah, relax. I just noticed something that you overlooked that can change how we approach this rescue mission. Take a lookie over at that," the pug dog-like alien whispered back, pointing over by the console of the TARDIS. There on the floor lay the gun that Per Degaton had used when he first captured the TARDIS before being vaporized when the Master seized control from him.

"You can use a gun?" She glanced down at his paws trying to imagine how the alien Remoolian could use the weapon without opposable thumbs.

"No, see, you go over to the gun. I'll go sneak over and untie the others. If those two goons spot me, you become Human again, pick up the gun and convince them to freeze."

She rubbed her paws over her face in a nervous gesture. "I don't know about that. I've never used a gun before. What if the safety is on? Or worse, what if I accidently fire it?"

"You have other problems, rodent!" squeaked a small voice as something small jumped onto her back.

"Ieeeeeee!" Magenta jumped about as Micro Lad stabbed her back repeatedly with an Imskian knife.

Frank had to jump back as one of Storm Shadow's katana blades tried to pin him to the floor. "Ulp!"

A laser beam from K-9's muzzle blasted the katana away. The ninja retaliated by knocking over the chair on top of the small robot before jumping back and draw his other sword.

Frank yelped as he ran toward the captives. "Ah, jeez! Who do I untie? Who do I untie?"

"Just pick somebody and untie them," snapped Det. Kate Benson as she edged to one side to let him have access to the ropes binding her wrist. Tarra, Tom Sawyer and Ian Chesterton also moved to give him room to their wrists.

He went to Agent Sawyer's hands first. "Hey, a problem. They used wire on your wrists."

"That explains why my wrist hurt when I try to pull them apart," Sawyer spat.

"They didn't use wire on everyone," pointed out Barbara Wright.

Frank looked for the next closest wrists tied with rope which happened to belong to the Invisible Girl.

The hooded head of the Invisible Girl jerked up as Frank began trying to untie the knots around her wrist with his teeth. "Hey, what's going on?" she cried out. "I can't see anything."

"Ha! The alien mutt chose to untie someone that wasn't awake yet," laughed Houdini of the Zoom team.

"Just for that I'm untying you last," muttered the Remoolian through a mouthful of rope.

"You'll never do it in time that way," criticized Houdini.

"If you have a better idea, we would love to hear it," spoke up Det. Kate Benson.

"I'll do better," he said. "Hey, Violet, do you have a bag over your head like I do?"

"Uh, yeah. I think so," said the dazed girl.

"Good. Make the bag invisible so you can see around and free the rest of us."

"Ok, just a minute. I have to clear my head a little."

Meanwhile, Magenta was trying to rub the attacking Imskian terrorist off her back against the chair, but Micro Lad laughed at her efforts, shrinking down or growing to continue his attacks with his knife.

Being maddened by the pain being inflicted on her she twisted suddenly and bite down hard.

Mirco Lad cried out as she pulled him off her back. She shook him back and forth by his left leg that she had clamped between her teeth until he finally flew over against the chair and bounced onto the floor. He fought against his instinct to shrink and instead grew to his full height.

Magenta grew to match the redheaded villain. She chose to use something that one of her teachers had helped her work on and remained in her Guinea Pug form but grew to her ninety pound size and managed a growl. "Drop the knife or I'll finish what I started and bite your leg off!"

His leg was mangled with part of the bone sticking out. Trying to stop the flow of blood with his hands, he nodded. "Just don't let me die!" he pleaded.

K-9 chased after his quarry making sure to stay between those tied up and Storm Shadow. The ninja had throw a variety of items at the metal mutt while dodging it's laser blasts. He was unprepared for the sudden blast from the freed Concussion.

"Nailed him!" shouted Concussion.

"Great. Now help free the rest us," requested Agent Sawyer. The Invisible Girl, who had used her powers to free herself and Concussion was working on freeing the others.

Frank the Pug jumped about excitedly. "Ha ha! We did it! We did it!"

Now that he was freed, Ian Chesterton moved over to the console of the TARDIS and turned on the outside monitor. "No sign of the Master."

"That's what's outside?" asked Agent Sawyer, who was still waiting to be freed. "I've – I've never seen anything like it."

Once the Invisible Girl used her powers to break Tarra's bonds she went over to her very still son to examine the gunshot wound Dorno had received when Per Degaton had captured the ship. "He's in shock. I need blankets."

"I know where there are some," Barbara said. "I'll bring the medical kit, too."

Det. Kate Benson moved over to examine Magenta who had reverted to her Human form. Kate ripped the back of Magenta's shirt to get a better visual. "Ouch, that looks like it hurts."

"Multiple stab wounds in my back and you wonder if it hurts?"

"Sorry," Kate replied. "They all look like superficial wounds though."

"Thank goodness Guinea pigs have thicker hides on their backs," commented Magenta as she winced, "otherwise I wouldn't have survived."

"Well, I don't think anything vital was hit. I will have to stitch these closed after I clean the wounds or else you will lose too much blood."

Among the former prisoners, Lexa pulled the hood from off her head. "I hate being captured and tied up."

Agent Sawyer rubbed his wrists. "Not many people do."

Concussion dragged over Storm Shadow by one of the villain's arms. "I was thinking of tying him to a chair, but then I thought 'why should he be more comfortable than we were?'."

Sawyer nodded. "I'll get some wire to bind his wrists."

Lexa tossed over her hood. "He can wear this, too. Oh, and you are going to want to search for any hidden weapons or tools hidden on his person that he could use to free himself."

Ian Chesterton looked over the settings on the TARDIS. "I think I can get us back to where we were on the battlefield."

"What?" Concussion looked up from where he was searching Storm Shadow. "We should be going after the Master and pound him and his henchmen into the ground, not running away with our tails between our legs."

"We need reinforcements," Det. Kate Benson said. "Not to mention the fact that we need to get the wounded to safety."

The discussion continued as the differing of opinion grew. One thing both side knew was that time was a necessity and they needed to come to an agreement soon.

**AUTHOR's NOTES:**

_Hey I posted faster this time. Next I'm going to work on the battle some more in the Land of the Lost. I'll try to be quick again._

_Rassilon and Pythia are actually listed in the history of Gallifrey so I tried to be as factual as I could be with what I could find on the Internet._

_As for the Imskian knife I mentioned, Micro Lad is actually from the planet Imsk where everyone has the power to shrink._


	27. Chapter 27

**A TANGLED WEB Part 8 Chapter 27**

**Author's note:** _This is a big battle scene between the heroes and villains with several hundred players so I am going to include a list of the players so people can verify who was with what show and all that. Hopefully that will help everyone. Now I'm going to do this battle in two parts because it's just taking to long so there will be some characters mentioned in this list that are not mentioned yet, but they will be later. I want to at least let all the characters get mentioned. And if you think keeping this all straight in my head might be driving me mad, well then I guess you are right. If you think someone is supposed to be here but isn't, well, then they are on the other battlefield facing the Borg or have died earlier. So here we go…_

**THOSE HEROES THAT HAD ARRIVED IN THE TARDIS:**

DOCTORS: The second Doctor, the third Doctor, the fourth Doctor, the fifth Doctor, the eighth Doctor, the ninth Doctor, the tenth Doctor

COMPANIONS OF TIME-LORDS: Jamie McCrimmon, Dr. Liz Shaw, Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, Captain Mike Yates, Sergeant Benton, Sarah Jane Smith, K-9, Tegan Jovanka, Nyssa of Traken, Melanie 'Mel' Bush, Dr. Grace Holloway, Rose Tyler, Martha Jones

**FIGHTERS FROM TARDIS: **

ANDROMEDA: Captain Dylan Hunt, Beka Valentine, Seamus Harper, Trance Gemini, Telemachus Rhade, Rommie, Doyle

ANGEL: Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, Charles Gunn, Lorne, Winifred 'Fred' Burkle, Cordelia Chase, Harmony Kendall

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: Xander Harris, Anya, Rupert Giles, Willow Rosenberg, Anya, Rupert Giles, Daniel 'Oz' Osborne, Riley Finn, Faith

GALAXY QUEST: Jason Nesmith, Gwen DeMarco, Alexander Dane, Fred Kwan, Guy Fleegman, Tommy Webber, Laliari

GHOSTBUSTERS: Dr. Peter Venkman, Dr. Raymond Stantz, Dr. Egon Spengler, Louis Tully, Winston Zeddmore, Slimer

HERCULOIDS: Zandor, Zok, Igoo, Gloop

INCREDIBLES: Elastigirl, Mr. Incredible, Frozone

LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN: Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, Mina Harker, Dr. Henry Jekyll / Edward Hyde

MEN IN BLACK: Agent Kay, Agent Jay

MUTANT X: Shalimar Fox, Brennan Mulwray, Jesse Kilmartin

MYSTERY MEN: The Blue Raja, Mr. Furious, The Shoveller, The Bowler, The Spleen, The Invisible Boy, The Sphinx

SKY HIGH: Will Stronghold, The Commander, Jetstream, Mr. Jonathan Boy / All-American Boy, Mr. Medulla, Layla Williams, Warren Peace, Giant Man, Principal Powers, Coach Boomer

SPACE: ABOVE AND BEYOND: Lt. Nathan West, Capt. Shane Vansen, Lt. Cooper Hawkes, Lt. Paul Wang, Lt. Col. Tyrus Cassius "T.C." McQueen

SPECIAL UNIT 2: Detective Nicholas O'Malley, Captain Richard Page, Carl the Gnome

THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN: Thundarr, Princess Ariel, Ookla the Mok

THUNDERCATS: Lion-O, Tygra, Panthro, Cheetara, WilyKit, WilyKat, Ben-Gali, Pumyra, Lynx-O

VOLTRON: Commander Keith Akira Kogane, Lance Charles McClain, Darrell "Pidge" Stoker, Princess Allura, Tsuyoshi "Hunk" Garett

ZOOM: Marsha Holloway, Cindy Collins / Princess, Summer Jones / Wonder, Tucker Williams / Mega Boy

MISCELLANEOUS HEROES: The Rocketeer, General Martok from Star Trek: DS9,

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**HEROES JUST ENTERING THE FIGHT- BROUGHT BY 7****th**** DOCTOR:**

AVENGERS: Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Ant-Man, Wasp

FANTASTIC FOUR: Invisible Woman, Human Torch, Mr. Fantastic, Thing

X-MEN: Prof. X, Wolverine, Storm, Rogue, Beast, Iceman, Shadowcat, Colossus, Angel, Nightcrawler

MISCELLANEOUS HEROES: Rygel from Farscape, Eric the Cavalier from Dungeons & Dragons, Enik from Land of the Lost, Cole from Tracker, Tia Malone from Escape to Witch Mountain, River Tam from Firefly, Jake Foley from Jake 2.0, Kai from Lexx, Sinbad from Sinbad, Sapphire and Steel from Sapphire & Steel, Maya from Space: 1999, Electric Woman and Dyna Girl from Electric Woman & Dyna Girl, Static Shock from Static Shock

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**THE MASTER'S ARMY**

DC Comics: Abra Kadabra, Ace of Clubs, Alexei Luthor, Amazo, Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man, Baron Blitzkrieg, Bizarro, Black Adam, Brain, Brainiac, Brainwave, Captain Boomerang, Captain Cold, Catman, Catwoman, Cavalier, Chameleon Chief, Cheetah, Circe, Clayface, Clock King, Copperhead, Cosmic King, Deathbolt, Deathstroke the Terminator, Dr. Double X, Dr. Light, Dr. Polaris, Dr. Psycho, Dr. Sivana, Dummy, Emerald Empress, Esper Lass, Felix Faust, Fiddler, Floronic Man, Garguax, General Immortus, Gentleman Ghost, Golden Glider, Hector Hammond, Hunter II, Ibac, Jack of Clubs, Joker, Kanjar Ro, Key, Killer Moth, King Kull, Kra, Lex Luthor, Lightning Lord, Major Disaster, Mano, Matter Master, Metallo, Minister Blizzard, Mirror Master, Mist, Mist Master, Monocle, Monsieur Mallah, Mr. Freeze, Multi-Man, Nemesis Kid, Neutrax, Owlman, Parasite, Penguin, Pied Piper, Poison Ivy, Prof. Amos Fortune, Prof. Ivo, Radiation Roy, Rag Doll, Riddler, Ron-Karr, Sabbac, Shadow Thief, Signalman, Silver Slasher, Sivana Jr., Solomon Grundy, Sonar, Spider Girl, Star Sapphire, Sun Emperor, Superwoman, Tattooed Man, Ten of Clubs, Terrus, Tharok, Thinker, Thorn, Titania, T.O. Morrow, Toyman, Two-Face, Tyr, Ultra-Humanite, Ultraman, Validus, Vandal Savage, Volcano Man, Weather Wizard, Wizard, Wotan

G.I. JOE: Cobra Commander, Baroness, Destro, Major Bludd, Zartan, Buzzer, Gnawgahyde, Monkeywrench, Ripper, Road Pig, Thrasher, Torch, Zander, Zanya, Zanzibar, Zarana

HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE: Skeletor, Beast Man, Evil-Lyn, Panthor, Tri-Klops, Jitsu

SHE-RA: Shadow Weaver, Catra, Entrapta, Grizzlor, Imp, Modulok, Rattler, Scorpia, Tung Lashor, Horde Troopers

SPACE GHOST: Brak, Moltar, Zorak, Sisto

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: Shredder, Bebop, Rocksteady, General Traag, Krang, Foot ninjas

TRANSFORMERS: Megatron / Starscream, Soundwave, Blitzwing, Ravage, Rumble

**AND NOW ON TO OUR STORY…**

On a small plain in the small micro universe known only as the Land of the Lost, the battle had hit a feverish pitch as warriors from many worlds and from across many ages fought for all they were worth. It had by no means been a normal battle, even by the standards of some of the more unusual fighters. The exploding marshmallow man had covered the battlefield in ectoplasmic goo; alien trophy hunters had been revealed in their midst while trying to cut them down; monstrously ghoulish golfers that insisted on playing through the battlefield; the Borg were attempting to press their advantage; and now another influx of fighters had been brought onto the field by the Doctor's seventh incarnation.

Before any mistakes were made between allies, Professor X introduced himself telepathically to those there at the Doctors' request, and then added a quick reference guide to their subconscious minds as well as those arriving with him so that they would recognize who was on their side by sight.

Thor was the first to draw first blood by throwing his hammer Mjöllnir and striking Superman's Earth 3 evil counterpart, Ultraman. Ultraman, hurt by the magical weapon, retaliated by flying back at super speed and knocking Thor a mile away. There in a low valley Ultraman and Thor traded blows that thundered throughout the Land of the Lost.

Black Adam, having just pounded The Commander halfway into the ground, turned to regard the newcomers. "Bah! There hardly seems a challenge amongst them."

_Perhaps you need to remember your more humbler origins_, spoke Professor X's voice in Black Adam's head. _Now let's hear you say that special word of yours._

Black Adam's jaw trembled slightly but opened to shout the magical name of the wizard who had originally empowered him with his supernatural attributes. "Shazam!"

A mystical bolt of lightning appeared out of nowhere striking the darkly garbed villain leaving him in his more mortal form of Teth-Adam and wearing his primitive garb from when he had first spoken the wizard Shazam's name over five thousand years prior.

_And now forget that name and sleep_, commanded Professor X. And the villain fell down to the ground and slumbered, heedless of the turmoil around him.

Professor X winced in pain as he felt another mind attack his. _Ah, now you will be a much more interesting opponent than my last one even as pretty as dear Summer was_, came a malevolence mental message. _I am Hector Hammond, and my mind has been evolved many times past that of other men and women_.

Xavier finished his mental barriers before replying. _I, too, am a mutant born with mental powers beyond those around me. But I feel we should use our similar abilities to find common ground and see if we can end this needless battle. The Borg are the true threat-_

_Ha! You are a coward!_ sneered Hector. They could see each other now on the astral plane, and Xavier marveled that Hector's balloon shaped head seemed as swollen as the man's ego.

Xavier blocked the next assault, that surprised him with it's strength and hostility. _Well, so much for doing this the easy way_, he thought. And the incredible battle between the two great minds and wills was on.

Flying overhead, Iron Man blasted Radiation Roy of the Legion of Super-Villains into unconsciousness. After seeing the amount of radiation that the villain had hit him with on his internal screen, Tony Stark was glad that he had insulated his suit with lead after previous encounters with the green skinned Radioactive Man back in his home universe. And then he was blasted by one of Skeletor's minions known as Tri-Klops, and he had to correct himself to keep from spinning out of control. "Geez, now this guy reminds me of that Soviet spy who had it out for me, the Unicorn. Well, let's see if this guy can take it as well as dish it out."

Static Shock flew up high on his manhole sized Static-Saucer that he was electromagnetically riding on. "Man, this scene is huge!" He moved aside as the space dragon Zok, who was one of the Herculoids flew through the air while battling the shape changing Durlan, Chameleon Chief of the Legion of Super-Villains who had just changed from a gigantic centipede on Zok's back to a blob-like creature that was hindering the space dragon's wings. Static Shock sent out a small burst of electromagnetic energy that caused the blob-like form to spasm off Zok and turn into some sort of glider beast that flew away to look for another victim down below. The space dragon nodded in thanks and then turned to pursue the glider creature.

The Human Torch flashed passed Static Shock to engage the android Amazo, who had most of the powers of the Justice League of America. The Wasp flew towards a squadron of lethal toy planes of the Toyman and began blowing them apart with her sting. On the ground Captain America led the charge. Using his shield to block bullets, Captain America plowed forward until he was within striking distance of Destro and then he pounced.

From one of his coat pockets, Static Shock brought out a small camera in order to take a picture. "Man, no one'll believe this story when I get home. But a picture or more will prove this all happened."

A greenish glow engulfed him painfully holding him still. The Emerald Empress flew over in a green platform created by the basketball sized Emerald Eye of Ekron. Reaching over she took what Static Shock had in his hand. She looked annoyed. "This isn't a weapon."

Static Shock tried to flare up a burst of electromagnetic energy to break free but found to his surprise that he couldn't. "Just wanted…to…have s-something…to remember…all this."

A mean grin spread across the Emerald Empress's face. "You use this primitive device to make pictures?" Using her Emerald Eye, she could see how the camera worked. "Very well, how's this?" She snapped a picture of him contorted in pain. "How about another one?" She snapped another photo. "Hmm, I think you need to have a more pained expression to make the mood I want to capture."

The green aura around him deepened for a moment and the young hero cried out as his right arm broke in three places.

"Much better," she commented, while taking another picture.

The young hero ground his teeth in pain as tears flowed freely down his face.

A sudden clap of lightning blinded the trapped hero for a second. He had to reestablish his hold on his Static-Saucer to keep from falling. He blinked rapidly to try clear his vision and see what had happened.

"You really have to watch yourself more in moments like this," came a feminine voice.

"Storm? Is that you? Thanks for the save." He quickly wiped his eyes with his sleeve ashamed to have been taken so unawares and then rescued by the hot woman he had been trying to impress earlier.

"You're holding your arm funny. Are you okay?"

He could see now that the elemental mutant was floating in front of him on wind currents that she controlled. "I'm – I'm fine. Really."

"No, your arm's broke. You need to go back."

"I can fight," he insisted while trying not to wince.

She reached out to touch his arm and he pulled back. She could see that he was going to be stubborn about this. Instead of arguing, she decided to redirect his need to help. "Why don't you go back and guard Professor Xavier? He's going to be focusing his attention of the battlefield. That makes him very exposed. And while guarding him you can also provide protection for anyone else that is injured and brought there."

He looked down solemnly at the ground where he could see the slightly charred Emerald Empress lying on the grass with the Emerald Eye floating protectively just a little ways over her.

"Yeah. Fine," he agreed. "But if you find my camera down there and if it isn't broken, could you maybe take a few pictures for me? I'd appreciate it."

"Ok, if I can find it later," she agreed, as she watched as two villains on the far side of the battlefield, Major Disaster and Weather Wizard, were working together to create a tornado in which to use against the heroes and the Borg. "I have to go take care of this." She flew off in a wind current of her own making, already her mind was focusing on the shape of the manmade tornado as it was about to touch the ground and determining the best way to undo it.

Dejectedly, Static Shock flew back and down to where Professor X sat in his wheelchair. The X-Men mentor sat there with his eyes closed in a deep meditation so Static tried not to disturb him. Enik the Altrusian stood at his side seeming to mediate as well in what Static assumed was supposed to lend Prof. X strength. The small alien Rygel sat on a nearby rock watching the battle with wonder, glee and fear. "Do you know how much a gladiatorial battle between such diverse groups would cost on the open market? And here we can watch it free! Ho! Ho!"

The young hero glared angrily at the diminutive alien. "Hey, some of those fighters out there just saved your tiny alien hide a little bit ago."

"So? That doesn't mean I can't enjoy watching as they fight. It's not like I forced them to go out there into that battle zone merely for my pleasure."

"No, I guess not. But still… Oh, man, did you just see Iceman bring down an avalanche on the guy that looked like he belonged in a volcano? And look, now the guy he buried is melting his way out of eight feet of snow and ice!" Indeed, the Volcano Man pushed through the snow and ice which melted quickly due to his naturally high body temperature, emitting a cloud of vapor that rose up into the sky. The Volcano Man pushed on toward Iceman, exclaiming a loud, "Sssssssss!" to communicate his anger.

"Yes, and over there it looks like our winged friend Angel has been entangled in the long red hair of that woman." As they watched, Spider Girl of the Legion of Super-Villains, whose power it was to mentally control her long, strong hair, had the legs of Angel of the X-Men ensnared and was trying to pull him down.

Static managed a small chuckle. "Looks like she wasn't prepared for him to be able to lift off with her weighting him down." He sat down being extra careful of his injured arm.

Rygel jumped down off his rock and moved over to look at something in the grass. "Say, what is this?"

"You find something?" Static asked, trying to ignore the pain in his arm.

"Yes, an unusual green ring. I wonder if it's worth anything?"

"Rygel! Look out!"

The former Hynerian emperor looked up from the new green bauble on his finger to see one of the drones that belonged to the Borg coming toward him. "Oh, frell."

A highly intense green beam came out from the ring and struck the drone so intently that for all intents and purposes it had been vaporized.

"What happened?" exclaimed Static.

"I-I-I think I did it." Rygel stared down at the ring, wondering whether or not he should take it off. "With this. This ring." He held the ring up and was surprised to find that he was levitating off the ground.

"Hey, do you normally float?" asked Static.

"Only twice before when I was badly constipated and had a buildup of helium, but no, this is something different." Rygel looked at the ring with wonder. "This must be a gift from the gods. I can use this to go back to my people and reclaim my throne."

Static felt a little nervous, not liking the gleam in Rygel's eyes. "Yeah, I guess, but first we have to deal with this battled over who get's to stop the Borg, and then actually deal with the Borg."

Rygel looked over at the battles being fought and then down at the ring again. A wicked smile slowly spread across his face. "It is time I showed them what real power can do in the hands of someone who can use it properly."

"Wait, are you planning to go out there with that ring? You don't know what it's limitations are. You could-"

But Rygel had gone flying into the melee like a cannonball using the newfound power in the ring to shield himself from harm. He didn't care that the emerald ring on his hand had once belonged to the villain Power Ring, an evil counterpart of Green Lantern, who had died while fighting the Borg and then the ring became lost after two of the villainess' fought over it. He didn't even know about the curse on the ring. All he knew was that he had power again, and while it wasn't the power of royalty, it was a start in the right direction.

On the field of battle, others had already come to blows. Ben Grimm, known on his own world as the Thing of the Fantastic Four, crushed the robotic frame of Kra like an accordion. Crumpled beyond repair, the self proclaimed King of the Robots sputtered, emitted a few sparks, and then the Challenger-Hater was no more.

The Thing crumbled the robot into more of a ball shape. Then, using his great strength, he used the ball as if it were a bowling ball and sent it rolling at a new group of drones just arriving from a path.

"A strike! I still got it!" Grimm turned and tried to determine who he should tackle next. Immediately, he found his candidate but it was trying to batter down the mystic shield erected by the young teen called the Cavalier who appeared quite frantic about the situation.

Picking up a nearby rock, Grimm threw a boulder striking a glancing blow to Solomon Grundy's head.

The chalk-white Solomon Grundy turned and growled in irritation, forgetting Eric the Cavalier who was quickly backing away.

Right away the Thing could tell that this was not going to be an easy fight. "Sheesh! You look like a bleached out version of the Hulk."

The tall albino monster roared in outrage. "Solomon Grundy will crush the orange rock man!"

"You're welcome to try, sport, cause IT'S CLOBBERING TIME!" Ben blocked Grundy's first blow as well as the second. The third blow, however, knocked him back a couple dozen feet. "All right, Grundy. You got one lucky shot in, but I'm telling you right now that that won't be happening again."

Solomon Grundy roared his reply and charged. The Thing did likewise.

Elastigirl was busy trying to contain a villain that was surprisingly dressed like a cloth doll. Even more surprising was the fact that she was having great difficult holding on to the creep. "I'm warning you, Ragdoll. Stop fighting me or--"

Ragdoll kicked sideways in an impossible 360 degree angle, managing to kick Elastigirl in the side of her face.

"Oops! I guess I really stuck my foot in it that time!" chortled Ragdoll.

She stretched out her arms and slammed him into the ground but he just kept laughing.

"So I'm guessing that you use your powers to enhance your physical attributes or do you just expect people to think that what they see is the real you?"

"What?" She couldn't believe this creep was saying this to her. They were in a battle for crying out loud.

"I suppose your subconsciousness could have been responsible for molding you into a more appealing shape," he went on, while signaling someone behind her.

Elasticgirl had wrapped her arm python-like around Ragdoll and still he managed to get an arm and leg free. "Geez, what does it take to get you to shut up?"

From behind, someone grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back with super-strength. She morphed out of person's grip but made sure not to let Ragdoll loose.

Ragdoll laughed. "Say hello to my great big friend Sabbac. He's quite the ladykiller, isn't he?"

Sabbac was tall, bald and wore a long green robe. His teeth resembled fangs and something about his eyes suggested a demonic connection.

Using Ragdoll, she swung the triple-jointed villain at Sabbac but the blows had no effect on him.

"Ow! Hey! Come on already, Sabbac! Stop her before she breaks something of mine!"

Before she could do anything, Ragdoll managed to poke two of his fingers into her eyes. Sabbac reached out to grab the distracted superheroine with a fiery grip but encountered an unseen barrier inches from her throat.

"What? Who dares to interfere?" demanded Sabbac, with both of his hands now on fire. For his answer he was suddenly struck be something unseen repeatedly. He tried burning whatever was striking him only to discover that he was incased in an invisible bubble in which he had just burned up most of the oxygen. Sabbac struck the wall a few times but his super strength proved to be unable to break through the barrier before he finally sank to his knees and passed out.

"Hey! No fair!" complained Ragdoll.

For her response, Elastigirl clocked the villain directly on the chin, knocking him senseless. "Violet, I told you to stay in the TARDIS, not that I minded being saved from a nasty moment, (Good job on that attack, by the way. It looks like your practice has been paying off.) but your dad and I need to know that you will obey us in a hostile situation, or else we won't-"

A blond woman in a blue outfit with a number four on the chest became visible near where Elastigirl thought her daughter was.

"Oh! I'm so sorry. I thought you were my daughter Violet."

Susan Storm smiled. "Hi, I'm Invisible Woman, though you probably already know that from the reference thoughts Professor X put in our heads. I take it that your daughter can turn invisible?" She glanced to the side and created an invisible barrier with her thoughts just in him to block a hail of bullets from the Baroness. Before Susan determined what she should do to the Cobra agent someone named the Sphinx had cut her weapon in half with his mind so she decided to leave what happened to the Baroness up to the Sphinx.

"Yes," answered Elastigirl. "She can turn invisible as well as create invisible barriers like you just did." She sent out her elongated fist and struck the Penguin who had been taking aim with his customized uzi-umbrella on the Thundercats who had just rescued two of their young from some wreckage. She then wrapped her arm around him several times and spun him like a top as she retracted her arm. "I was just thinking…when this is all over, do you think you could give my daughter a few pointers on having powers like yours?"

"I'd love to," agreed Invisible Woman. "So is that your husband over there? He has the same pattern of uniform as you do."

She nodded. "Yep. That's him, Mr. Incredible himself." They watched as Mr. Incredible exchanged blows with Baron Blitzkrieg, a super-powered Nazi.

"And there's my husband." The Invisible Woman pointed to where Mr. Fantastic was working on containing the malleable villain known as Clayface.

Elastigirl blinked in surprise. "He has stretching powers like I do."

"I wonder if the similarities between us are more than a coincidence."

Elastigirl's eyebrow rose. "Your group wouldn't by chance be called the Fantastics, would it?"

"Nope, we're the Fantastic Four. Our two other members are my brother, the Human Torch, who you can see flying up there, and then there is the Thing, who is practically family. He has super-strength."

"We're the Incredibles. Named after my husband, of course. But how can two totally different groups from different worlds each with four members yet have three of each group having very similar abilities. Invisibility, stretching, and super-strength. What are the odds?"

"We can have Reed, my husband, look into it later," said the Invisible Woman. "He's also a super-genius, but he came by that naturally."

A look of concern crossed Elastigirl's face. "I'd love to talk, Invisible Woman, but that metal-plated super-powered Nazi managed to get my husband in a headlock."

"Understood," agreed the other heroine. "I think I have to go save my brother's bacon again, too. See you later," she said as she became invisible.

"Easy for you to say," chuckled Elastigirl as she quickly used her lengthened arm to pole-vault over a scuffle between the white-ape form of the Ultra-Humanite and the werewolf Oz.

Mina Harker was crouched down holding her prey tight as she drew deep gulps of the hot salty blood that she craved so dearly. In her grasp, Ocean Master trembled uncontrollably as his world became cold, dark and empty.

"Pardon me for interrupting. I know it's rude to intrude while someone is eating, but, well, I was hoping you could help me with something."

Mina snarled as she looked up from her kill. The interrupter was a young, attractive, blond woman in a scantily clad outfit that she found to be incredible that someone would wear to a battle. She also noted that she was a vampire, too. "What do you want?" she asked guardingly, taking only a moment to wipe the blood from her lips.

"Well, my name is Harmony Kendall. I came along with on this venture with Angel, the big brooding vampire who is hard to miss. He's been trying to give me a second chance and get my unlife in order. Anyway, I couldn't help but see you do some rather amazing things out here and, well, I was wondering if I could do an internship with you."

"Internship?"

"Yeah. So I can learn to do some of the vampire things that I've seen you do. That flying thing you did was awesome. To be honest, I'm not really much of a vampire yet, I was left on my own right away, but I have been trying."

Mina looked at her in disbelief. "Are you asking to be my apprentice?"

"Apprentice. Intern. Whatever you want to call it. And if you want I could help you out with some of the things I'm really good at, like fashion. Just because we died doesn't mean our wardrobe has to as well, right?"

Mina knelt down and ripped off Ocean Master's head as a precaution to keep from accidently raising him as another vampire. "I'm not sure what I could teach you. I do not like what I have become or my fiendish appetite. As a result I only feed on killers, thieves and rapists."

"So you're like a good version of Jack the Ripper. That sounds cool. It's kind of like performing a type of community service."

"…something like that, I suppose." Was she truly that naïve?

"So will you take me on?"

Mina first thought was to just say no. Her second thought was to rip off Harmony's head as a mercy killing. But a third thought came to mind. If she could get Harmony to focus her apatite on the worst sorts on society, then maybe it would be worthwhile to train Harmony. "I will talk to this Angel fellow and see what he thinks."

Harmony fidgeted. "I hope he isn't mad at me coming to you."

"Is he your master?" she asked, referring to the one who had sired her as a vampire or the one who had accepted her as an underling.

"Angel? No. He's not the type, though I wouldn't mind him being my master, if you know what I mean." Her eyes took on a daydreamish lusty look of contemplation.

Mina rolled her eyes and began reconsidering the idea of ripping off Harmony's head.

Elsewhere on the field of conflict, one of the young Yautja hunters was finding himself blocked now that his cloaking field had been rendered inert by the unusual white stuff that had exploded all over the field. Even though their starship had somehow come to this strange land, his first hunt could be considered very successful as he had captured three skulls for trophies. The first had come from the alien bounty hunter Dengar. The second had been from on this battlefield where he had speared Terra Man and his winged horse together in one shot. The third skull had belonged to one of the Foot ninjas that had attacked him on sight. He had underestimated the ninja and had a small cut on his shoulder to remind him of his carelessness. But he had not wanted to free up his left arm with which he carried the trophy of one of the wings from Terra Man's horse and had been fortunate to only have paid a small price.

Now two others challenged his passage out of the battlefield. Regretfully he dropped the wing of the Pegasus with hopes of collecting it later. A moment of exhilarating anticipation flowed through him as he held his arms out with a roar to accept their challenge.

Shredder stood tall in his modified armor with his sword held loosely in his left hand. He admired the other creature's armor and hoped to convert parts of it into something he could wear if it proved to be as deadly as it appeared. First, he turned to the other challenger. "He has killed one of my ninjas. I claim the right to face him first."

Deathstroke the Terminator nodded in agreement. "As you wish. He's all yours." He was relatively certain that the arrogant Shredder would be defeated, but he himself would have a much better opportunity of defeating the alien warrior after he had an chance to study it's fighting strategies.

Shredder moved forward as did the young Yautja hunter. He swung his sword intending to test his opponent's speed in blocking, but was unprepared when the young hunter lashed out with the extended twin wrist blades, cutting his sword in half. Shredder ducked and rolled away while throwing two metal shuriken which the alien stopped to deflect with his wrist blades.

Shredder looked at his damaged blade and scowled. From his belt he pulled a canister and threw it directly at the large hunter. The inexperienced hunter reacted as Shredder planned and lashed out contemptuously with his wrist blades again. A small explosion blew the young Yautja back as he disappeared in a cloud of flame and smoke.

Shredder looked back to Deathstroke who was still standing where he had been observing. He snorted as he moved through the haze to where the young hunter laid. On closer examination, Shredder placed the youngster at about seven feet in height. He only marveled a moment at the florescent green blood splattered on the alien's chest. Using what remained of his sword, Shredder jammed it through the thick thigh muscle of his opponent and received no response. But it was not enough to defeat such an amazing creature, he wanted to see it's face. He glanced around and was reasonably sure that he wasn't going to be attack by anyone just then. With some experimental pulls and releases of latches, Shredder removed the alien's mask. Even after all his experiences with Krang and various mutants, he was unprepared for the alien visage before him. "It's monstrous!"

The creature's eyes snapped open and Shredder fell back, but not quick enough. It lashed out with it's wrist blades effectively chopping off most off Shredder's right hand. Shredder was up and backing away while trying to staunch the flow of blood.

He stumbled but managed to keep moving till he came to Deathstroke who was still standing in the same place. "What are you doing? Fight it! Kill it!" He reached back and grabbed part of his cape to wrap over the wound.

"Wasn't sure you were done," said the assassin in a very laid back tone.

One of Shredder's Foot ninjas broke away from his teammates attack against Captain Dylan Hunt and Mr. Furious. Leaping to his master's side, the ninja took some material from his belt and quickly put it in place so that it made a temporary bandage.

"Do they serve you breakfast in bed, too?" taunted Deathstroke.

The Foot ninja took a fighting stance, preparing to attack the assassin at a signal from Shredder. Instead, Shredder's broken sword flew through the air and imbedded itself in the ninja's skull, killing him instantly.

The young hunter was on his feet again and had his mask back on. A trickle of florescent green blood flowed from the wound Shedder's sword had made in the alien's thigh alone with a number of smaller cuts from the explosion.

"I claim the right to face him first," came Shredder's words, replayed from some instrument on the alien's body.

The young hunter shuffled forward tentatively, and then reached back to pull out his Combi Stick which extended into the shape he desired. Drawing the Combi Stick back, the hunter threw with all his might, but faltered slightly.

Having just picked up the weapon of his dead Foot ninja, Shredder managed to duck the alien weapon and it traveled on to imbed itself in Giant Man's ankle causing the massive hero to fall backwards in pain. Most everyone cleared out from beneath the colossal hero except for one of the Cybermen, the ghost Slimer and the 30th Century villain Ron-Karr. None were hurt much. The Cyberman had been standing in relatively soft soil so had been pushed into the ground, Slimer just remained immaterial while Ron-Karr became 2-dimensional and laid flat on the ground hoping the large man would get up so he could breathe again.

The very large Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man leaped onto Giant Man to continue their battle making the lower half of his body to wrap the large man's in his tentacles, his arms and fists became diamond and his torso and head were made of oak.

Deathstroke had to knock Shredder out of his way as he managed to get clear of the two giant thrashing forms. He only stopped to watch as Giant Man shoved one of the Cybermen up A-M-V Man's wooden nose. Turning back the mercenary elite was almost decapitated by the Yautja hunter, instead he just ducked clear of the other's blade. To stop another attack, Deathstroke lashed back with his power staff striking the alien in the ribs

The Yautja hunter pulled back, his nerve ending of his chest were on overwhelm. He stepped back and let his head clear and a chance to breathe normally again. He had planned to kill the other one first but this one-eyed fighter had gotten in the way. He was surprised to note that this second one had a grace of motion that was worthy of a seasoned hunter. And his weapon had hurt him horribly, but had not truly wounded him, as he suspected it was designed to do. Did this one-eyed Human hunter mean to toy with him? He looked down at his shrapnel wounds and the place he had been stabbed in his thigh. They weren't lethal yet, but he needed to get to a more secluded location and patch himself up before they became lethal. Hopefully then he could come back to try claim this one-eyed Human's head for a trophy as well as his interesting weapon.

"I know your type," Deathstroke said, looking at the three chopped off heads the young hunter carried in a netting bag connected to his belt. "You're going to keep coming back to collect an assortment of trophies off of us so you can impress you family, friends and probably some girl you hope to marry. As long as someone here looks like they might make a decent trophy for your wall or den, you are just going to keep killing us. That is unless we kill you first."

Deathstroke leaped forward as the young hunter had anticipated. He raised his wrist blades to strike, but at the last possible moment Deathstroke ducked under the swinging blade and jammed his power staff into the Yautja's neck. The alien convulsed uncontrollably. Deathstroke pressed his advantage and struck him with his power staff again and again. Then, when he was assured that the young hunter was senseless and on the ground, Deathstroke pulled out a large knife and slit it's throat.

Shredder stared in anger and disbelief at the ease of which this mercenary assassin had dispatched the alien that had injured him. His fury rose high when he saw that now Deathstroke meant to claim the alien's weapons for himself.

Even in his pain he almost laughed when one of the large robot Decepticons came down for a landing crushing the remains of the Yautja, and causing Deathstroke the Terminator to scurry to safety with nothing for his efforts.

"Where is the one who calls himself the Master?" cried out Starcream, but not with Starscream's voice. Next to the tall robot landed Soundwave, who began scanning the area after shooting down two of the drones. "And who are these others you are fighting?"

Shredder scowled under his mask and he applied pressure to his wound. "The Master has not been seen since these newcomers attacked us. He may have been captured or killed. The possibility that he is in hiding is also a possibility." Having said all he knew, Shredder went to have his injury treated before he lost too much blood.

Megatron, who had stolen Starscream's body, was furious, but not without hope that he could still have his revenge. "Soundwave, scan for any sign of the Master."

"Scanning completed. The Master is not on the battlefield."

"Then scan outside the battlefield! He must be found!" he demanded. He looked about for signs of his Decepticons. In the next valley, Megatron could see the massive frame of Devastator fighting against a massive Borg drone that had been partially made with the female Giganta and another large robot that Megatron had not encountered. Bonecrusher, the Constructicon that made up Devastator's left arm, had broken off the composite robot. While he emitted a series of sparks, Bonecrusher attempted to fly back and resume his position on Devastator's frame.

The Giganta / Mr. Atom drone sent a series of blasts to which Bonecrusher tried hard to avoid. The main frame of Devastator moved between Bonecrusher and the large drone in order to give Bonecrusher a chance to reattach and bring them back to full strength while receiving a blast that knocked them back.

Behind the large Borg drone rose another large robot that Megatron did not recognize. The different colors on each limb suggested that it was also a type of composite giant that separated to five or six different units.

Voltron rose up, dirt and vegetation falling from off of it's frame from where it had been partially buried in the ground. Rushing forward, Voltron tackled the drone from behind, causing them to collide with Devestator. The flying form of Bonecrusher was the only one in view now, and the Decepticon fired a series of shots at a target Megatron could no longer see.

Looking around the battlefield, Megatron spotted Rumble facing of against a number of Humans, who he was having great sport in tossing around.

"Heh, you guys are just bugs compared to me!" proclaimed the diminutive Decepticon who was just a little taller than the Humans with whom he was fighting. He tossed Lt. Paul Wang at Capt. Shane Vansen who had to catch the other man causing both to fall back onto the ground

Lt. Cooper Hawks blasted away at Rumble's chest plate and face forcing the Decepticon to shield his face with his arm. The blast only scorched the robot's chest but Rumble knew better than to allow his optical sensors to be damaged.

Hawks figured that the annoying robot would respond protectively of it's face giving Lt. Col. McQueen a chance to run up behind Rumble and slap a plastic explosive onto it's back.

Rumble startled at something came in contact with his back. "Hey, what was-"

An explosion rocked the area. As the dust cleared, Rumble crawled out of a small crater the explosive had made, slightly stunned and dented.

Lt. Col. McQueen was about to lead his team on another assault against Rumble but were forced to scatter when Megatron fired a series of shots in their direction.

"Starscream? Man, I never thought I'd be glad to see you," said the disoriented robot. "Uh, I mean-"

"Follow me," commanded Megatron as he flew overhead in search of more of his Decepticons. Behind him flew Soundwave and a very wobbly Rumble.

They came across the canine-like Ravage, who had just finished destroying K-9, the companion robot that the Doctor had given to Sarah Jane Smith as a gift. Nearby, Sarah Jane sobbed at the savagery of the assault on her robotic friend.

"Come," commanded Megatron. And Ravage flew to join them.

They flew over Felix Faust who was finding it difficult to kill the nimble Sinbad. Deathstroke the Terminator had found a new opponent in River Tam who proved to be not only difficult to kill but had nearly killed him a few times. Rygel flew past with the aid of his new found power ring while using to blast away at Bizarro who kept coming back for more. The cyborg Metallo had been captured by the Borg and the plant-like Floronic Man was using his ability to control plants to push or pull the Borg away from the battlefield with limited success.

Megatron spotted Blitzwing just beyond where Multi-Man was using his newly acquired wind powers against the super blowing powers of Marsha Holloway. The sudden turbulence proved to be only mildly difficult for the flying robots. As they pushed their way through the winds, Megatron looked at see what kind of battle Blitzwing was engaged in. To his surprise, he saw a robed man being held in one of Blitzwing's hands over the robot's head. The man seemed to be very frantic and was trying to use a golf club to pry the robot's fingers open. Meanwhile, there was a thing attacking Blitzwing's legs that looked like – – someone's luggage?

Before he could determine if there was a malfunction in Starscream's optical relays, the dark blue shape of Nightcrawler appeared next to the captive man in the robot's fist. And then both Humans disappeared in a burst of smoke. The anthropomorphic Luggage looked about frantically for it's owner for a minute, giving Blitzwing a chance to escape it into the air.

"That-that thing was unnatural!" Blitzwing, a veteran warrior of numerous battles, was quite visibly shaken by his encounter with the ferocious Luggage. Indeed, Megatron was surprised to note a series of dents and strained joints that could be seen on the other's frame.

"Where are the other Decepticons?"

"Starscream, what's the matter with you? Your voice sounds like Megatron's."

"It's because I, Megatron, now occupy this frame that used to belong to Starscream. Even when being utterly crushed and left for ruin I fought to return to my place as leader of the Decepticons and to have my revenge!"

Blitzwing looked to Rumble who just shrugged.

"You did not answer my question. Where are the other Decepticons?"

Blitzwing fidgeted for a moment before coming out with it. "They are all gone, destroyed, except us and the Constructicons. It was the Borg mostly."

"What?" Megatron clenched his fists in fury. He turned to Soundwave. "Is this true?"

Soundwave nodded. "Affirmative."

"Damn the Master! He must pay for the destruction of my Decepticons!"

"So what do we do?" asked Rumble.

Megatron considered his limited options. "The Master will have to return at some point to collect whatever remains of his troops. When he does, we'll be ready." They flew off toward where the Constructicons were still continuing with their gargantuan battle.

Inside of Megatron, in the small confides of what would have been a jet pilot's seat, General Martok was able to listen and watch on the dashboard screen. He found it frustrating that they had not found the Master right away, but he was a Klingon and he could wait to make his kill.

From down on the battlefield, the Joker looked up as the Decepticons flew away. "Oh, that's not good."

"What now?" asked his diminutive companion, the Dummy, who was a living, wooden ventriloquist dummy with a passion for crime. "Geez, the robot men are taking off? They were some of our heaviest hitters."

Professor Amos Fortune looked up from his barricade. "Our luck seems to be taking a turn for the worst."

Ten of Clubs, one of Prof. Fortune's Royal Flush Gang, followed their example and looked up. "Hey, where are the tin men going?" Ace and the Jack of Clubs climbed up to take a look.

"And now the other robots – the ones that came together to make the giant robot – they're leaving." All they could do was watch as the Constructicons broke away from the Giganta / Mr. Atom drone and followed the other departing Decepticons. The Jack of Clubs fired his weapon at a distant drone more out of fury than intent to kill. "Damn you, Fortune! What have you gotten us into?"

"We can play the blame game later," responded Fortune. "What matters now is what we do to survive."

The Joker let out a laugh and twirled with his arms out. "Well, you know what they say, 'when the steel rats abandon ship, it's time to get your rear out of here'."

The Dummy checked his revolver, and shook his head when he saw how few bullets he had left. "I think you're right on the money, Joker. We'd best take our chances out in the jungle."

"You aren't going anywhere!" proclaimed a strong feminine voice. The flashy appareled Dyna Girl used her ElectraCom to first zap the Dummy's gun away along with the weapons of what remained of the Royal Flush Gang. Then she used the device to form an electric cage around them. "That ought to hold you. And I wouldn't touch those bars, if I were you. They're made of pure electrical energy."

The Joker scratched his chin. "Pure electrical energy you say." The Clown of Crime suddenly reached down and grabbed the Dummy by the waist, spun and threw him through the electric bars with all his maddening might. Dyna Girl, not expecting anyone being able to pass through her cage, was caught totally off guard. The resounding clunk when their heads met knocked out the young heroine.

The Dummy stood up and twisted his head back to the correct position. Only then did he notice the striped smoking scorch marks on his suit. "Geez, do you know how hard it is to get an Armani suit in my size? But, you guessed right, Joker. I could pass through the bars without being harmed or killed. But how did you know that?"

The Joker laughed. "But I didn't. It just seemed like the thing to do at the time."

The Jack and Ten of Clubs edged over toward their flying playing card platforms. Working with the Joker

"That's more favorable," commented Prof. Fortune. "Now we have a hostage."

"Hostages do increase our chances." Tharok, leader of the Fatal Five, walked over with Mano, who was also a member of said group. Both villains had come from the 30th Century. Tharok had once had the left side of his body destroyed. Surgeons created and fused a robotic form modeled after his body boosting his strength and his intellect. Mano was the mutated product of his planet's polluted environment, for in the palm of his hand was a small disc that whatever he touched it against was disintegrated. He also wore a shadowy dome over his head that mimicked the poisonous atmosphere of his homeworld. Behind them were the bound forms of the eighth Incarnation of the Doctor and his companion Dr. Grace Holloway being pushed along by Terrus and Esper Lass of the Legion of Super-Villains.

The Doctor was clearly frustrated. "You are doing the Borg's work for them. Our best chance of beating them is by not fighting each other, but to join forces against the Borg before they grow too powerful to stop."

Terrus laughed. "This from one of the group that attacked us as soon as you arrived."

"Actually," said the Doctor, "if you remember correctly, it was the Master that had you attack us."

"This discussion is moot." Tharok turned to the Doctor. "I estimate that you have more influence over your comrades than your companion. Tell them to cease all hostilities or the two women die."

"Do you really think they would trust you?" said the time-lord.

The Joker giggled as he tugged on Dyna Girl's cheeks so that it looked like she was smiling. "Well, we could always kill them now and then just say you were being unreasonable."

"Not if we have anything to say about it!"

Coming toward them was a short man and two young women.

Mano stepped between the newcomers and the three prisoners. "By all means, if you wish to die, keep coming forward."

The short man nodded to one of the young ladies and she continued on.

As Shadowcat neared her target she suddenly leaped for the two women. Mano reached out to touch her but his deadly hand just passed through her. Shadowcat then grabbed a hold of Dr. Holloway and Dyna Girl and phased them so that they could not be touched either. She couldn't phase that much extra mass for long, but then again Wolverine's fights rarely lasted very long.

"She must be from Bgztl like Phantom Girl. She can't be touch," complained Mano, referring to one of the members of the Legion of Super Heroes he fought back in the 30th Century.

"Let's rumble!" Wolverine leaped through the air, lashing out with his claws, cutting off Tharok's robot arm and leg, freeing the Doctor and leaving Tharok awkwardly crippled. The Joker ducked backwards while smiling insanely; Wolverine followed.

"You know, there are better ways to reach out and touch someone," teased the Joker.

Wolverine growled as the large frame of the Ace of Clubs came to face him. "I prefer claws." He leaped forward, slashing without restraint since his nose informed him that the Ace of Clubs was an android.

"I always preferred to convey my message with flowers myself." The artificial boutonnière on his purple jacket sprayed acid onto Wolverine and the Ace of Clubs. The already damaged android sparked and sputtered in it's finality, but Wolverine writhed in pain.

The Joker's piercing laugh was cut off when Rogue grabbed his head from behind with her two bare hands. They collapsed as Rogue used her mutant powers to absorb the memories of the disturbed Clown of Crime.

Terrus and Mano moved in on Wolverine. Growling, Wolverine threw one of Ace's severed android arms at Mano who instinctively disintegrated it with his hand. Wolverine rushed Terrus, Mano moved in to tap and disintegrate Wolverine with his palm, but the feral mutant rolled and lashed out, cutting off Mano's hand. Manos screamed in pain and shock while Terrus took off and ran into a Borg drone that assimilated him.

Esper Lass kneeled in front of Shadowcat, who still held the other two women in phase with her. They locked eyes. "So you can't be touched?" She smiled. "Then it's a good thing my powers don't have anything to do with touching." Mentally she reached out to grab the teenagers mind. Shadowcat gritted her teeth and resisted the telepathic assault with all the defenses Prof. X had taught her.

Esper Lass frowned; she had expected an easy victory over this child, but now she realized it was going to be more of a feat. "Mark my words, child, I will crush you."

"No, you won't." The Doctor stood just behind the three women.

Esper Lass laughed and then she lashed out to assault the Doctor's mind. The time-lord staggered slightly but stood his ground. The evil mentalist probed hard and deep into the Doctor's mind, but realized the trap too late. Her mind was stuck like a fly in amber. She frantically pulled but the Doctor just held on, letting her weaken. And then when she was pulling with all her might, he let go causing her powers to backlash and render her into a light coma.

The Doctor staggered and fell to his knees. "Telepaths can be so draining."

"Tell me about it." Shadowcat relaxed phasing herself and the two women. Sitting down in a relaxed place she started a breathing exercise that Prof. X had taught her to relieve the pain that a telepath can cause. She kept her eyes on the battle around them so that if they were in any danger she could phase herself and the others. "My frontal lobe feels fried."

Dr. Grace Holloway put a hand on Shadowcat's shoulder. "Thank you," was all she could think to say.

Blocking the energy blade of the Jack of Clubs with his claws was not easy by any means. The contact of the energy blade to Wolverine's adamantium claws sent waves of electrical pain throughout his metal skeleton. Ten of Clubs fired her projectile weapon that shot razor sharp miniature club-like symbols which mostly just pierced Wolverine's skin before bouncing off his adamantium skeleton. Two of the sharp clubs ricocheted back to the Jack of Clubs side making him cry out for her to stop until he way clear.

Wolverine lashed out again with his other hand, damaging the hilt of the weapon and cutting off the Jack of Clubs thumb. The Ten of Clubs aimed for Wolverine's legs cutting some of the tendons in his leg in order for her and the Jack of Clubs a chance to get to their flying card platforms. Professor Fortune was already hovering high above and shooting more of the razor sharp clubs so the others could get away. He didn't want to lose anyone else in the Royal Flush Gang. He may not have shown it, but losing the King and Queen of Clubs, both friends of his since childhood, had been very hard for him since he had been the one to get his old friends to form the Royal Flush Gang,

Unable to pursue the Royal Flush Gang until the tendons in his leg healed, Wolverine used his claws to bat away the annoying club symbols until they flew away to engage someone less lethal in which to come to blows.

In an unpleasant mood, Wolverine glanced around. Mano had passed out due to blood loss. He determined to put on a tourniquet later if he had time, but not because he wanted to, he just knew Professor X would bawl him out if he didn't. Tharok was scowling angrily resenting having to scramble awkwardly on the ground due to his partially chopped off prosthetic arm and leg. Shadowcat had one of the Doctors and two women under her protection so he didn't bother with them. What did catch his eye was Rogue kneeling over the Joker and going through his pockets.

"Rogue, darlin', whatcha doing?"

Rogue turned to reveal a fright. Her face was pale and her hair dark green, but it was her wide-eyed maniacal grin that told him that she was not in control of her possession of the Joker's mind.

She snapped out a gun that she had retrieved off the Joker. "Ha ha ha ha! Time to put down the rabid mutant." But instead of a bullet, a small red flag on a short stick popped that had the word 'BANG' on it. "Oopse," she said. "Don't you just hate it when that happens? And don't say it doesn't happen to you because studies have proven that it is more common then you think."

"C'mon, Rogue, take control of this joker."

"Oh, you've heard of me. Must be a fan. So here's a souvenir for you." The Rogue / Joker fired the gun again. This time the flag of the stick was fired and impaled Wolverine in the stomach. "Now I don't want to find out that you just turned around and sold that on EBay because that's just tacky."

Wolverine sheathed his claws, grabbed the shaft in his gut and yanked it out. "Sorry about this, darlin'." He closed the distance between them, blocked her arm that held the lethal electrical joybuzzer and hit her squarely on the jaw. Rogue / Joker spun around and collapsed on the ground senseless.

He just noticed something behind him when an explosion occurred blasting him head over heels forward. Shaking his head to clear the stars in his eyes, Wolverine glanced back at the small crater. The Dummy was here and there blown to pieces, but near his torso was the severed hand of Mano. Wolverine realized that the wooden villain had tried to kill him by touching him with the deadly disc in Mano's palm.

He didn't have to wait long for his 'rescuer' to reveal himself. The Rogue Yautja stood there in the open to let Wolverine to have a chance to evaluate him before they closed for combat. Wolverine noted the twin wrist blades the alien had, as well as the spear-like weapon and a large axe. It the net-like bag connected to it's belt, the Rouge Yautja had a collection of heads: the partially polished skull of the bounty hunter Zuckuss, the skull and vertebra of the Persuader as well as his atomic axe, and just on top of those was the newly acquired head of Kai, the undead Divine Assassin that Wolverine had gone against when under Kang the Conqueror's control. His eyes couldn't help but follow those in the bag when the alien tossed them onto the ground.

"Wolverine?"

"I got it, darling," he said to Shadowcat.

"You might want to rethink this," spoke the Doctor. "That's a Yautja hunter. It is their custom to hunt the most dangerous prey they can find in the universe, sentient and non-sentient alike. Plus, they are very formidable with or without their weapons."

"Well then, I'd hate to disappoint him because I'm the best at what I do, and what I do best isn't very nice."

"Let's rumble!" came the eerie recording of one of Wolverine's state. The Rogue hunter jammed his spear and the Persuader's axe into the ground, extending his twin wrist blades for the fight. The Rogue had been impressed with what he saw of Wolverine's fights. He was more impressed when his internal sensors indicated a strong alloy over Wolverine's bones and claws. He'd never heard of anyone collecting a trophy with a metal skeleton. And that was why he didn't allow the Dummy to kill Wolverine; he wanted the honor of doing it himself.

They clashed together, both surprised that they had not immediately cut through the others weapon, but instead causing sparks to fly about. They each scored minor wounds on the other, but when the Rogue hunter realized that Wolverine's wounds were already healing, he knocked the mutant away and leapt for his other weapons.

Wolverine grinned. He loved a good fight. "What's the matter, sport? You can dish it out but you can't take it?"

The Rogue Yautji bellowed another challenge as he gripped hard to the Persuader's long handled axe.

"Your funeral, bub."

The Rogue Yautji lashed out with the axe, Wolverine blocked with his left hand claws only to have them cut down by two-thirds their length as well as clip him in the chin. The short mutant ducked the next swing and grabbed two of his adamantium claws and then jumped back. He used the two claws as darts making the Rogue hunter go on the defensive while Wolverine ducked and rolled into the strike zone and slash the axe's handle with the claws of his right hand.

Furious, the Rogue hunter jumped up high and fired his net gun. Wolverine found himself suddenly thrust to the ground by the mesh netting. Before he could squirm to a better position, the netting began to constrict, cutting into his flesh. "Bub, you are definitely starting to piss me off!"

His right arm was pinned underneath him but by using what remained of his claws of his left hand he started to cut his way free. Unfortunately, the Rogue was right on top of him with his spear and thrust it into his chest, only to find it blocked by Wolverine's adamantium ribs. Wolverine, realizing the alien wasn't going to make that mistake again, looked for some kind of weapon. As his left hand came free, he spotted what he needed. Quickly reaching over, he grabbed Mano's severed hand and pressed it's palm against the Rogue Yautji's leg. The Rogue hunter barely had time to scream before he disintegrated.

"Wolverine!" Shadowcat hurried over, took his hand and phased him to get him out of the constricting netting.

"Thanks, darlin'," he said, trying not to stagger.

"You've lost a lot of blood."

"It's ok. I've been through worse."

"I would have come sooner but some idiot that called himself the Shadow Thief had attacked us. He's kind of untouchable like me."

"Any problem taking him down." He could see that the Doctor's friend, Dr. Holloway, was busy putting a tourniquet on the stump of what remained of Mano's arm.

"Not really. Once he realized I could touch him and that I don't fight like your typical girl, he took off."

"I told you training with me would help." Wolverine picked up his severed claws hoping that he'd find someone to reattach them later. Somehow he didn't think super glue would work very well on his claws. He held onto Mano's hand as well, thinking it could be useful to get rid of the smelly garbage back home instead of waiting for the trash collector's to get it at the end of the week. That and any pesky mutant killing Sentinel robots that came by.

He was startled when Kai's headless body walked over, retrieved his head out of the assortment in the bag, and then placed it on the stump of his neck where it belonged. To Wolverine's amazement, the head and body healed together in just a few seconds. "Well, now I know how people feel when I heal in front of them."

In the distance and above the din of people fighting, he could hear Rygel give a war cry as he encountered Star Sapphire above the battlefield. "Give her hell, bub."

**AUTHOR's NOTES:**

_Hope everyone loved my mega large crossover battle. I love big crossover battles but I can't find many to read so I write my own. _

_Now the Green Lantern power ring that Rygel found was actually a counterpart item that had belonged to Green Lantern's evil counterpart Power Ring from Earth 3 who some may remember I had the Borg kill in a previous chapter right before Star Sapphire and Emerald Empress fought over it and it was lost on the battlefield._

_As for Prof. X forcing Black Adam to say 'Shazam!", well, it just made sense that he would do something like that since he always tried that with his step-brother, the Juggernaut._

_I wanted Elastigirl and Invisible Woman to met and discuss more things, but there is only so much you can say when people all around you are fighting for their lives. I did enjoy the Harmony asking to become the apprentice of Mina Harker of the movie version of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen._

_I managed to get the first part of my 'Megatron Returns' inner story arc done. And man is he pissed at the Master. First his body is destroyed, then he had to jump into multiple pieces of machinery – Spock's tricorder, the bounty hunter 4-LOM, a terminator, till finally taking over Starscream's body – only to learn that about half his Decepticons had been destroyed or taken over by the Borg._

_Now there have been a couple of K-9 robots in the DOCTOR WHO series, one of which he gave to Sarah Jane Smith._

_I was glad to figure out how I wanted to use the Joker. Rogue had no chance when she absorbed his mind. And as for Wolverine, I just want to point out that the Persuader's axe is said to be able to cut electrons in half, even the fabric of reality. Nothing is able to withstand it for long. Not even his claws. Not even a force field._

_Now in keeping all this straight, I had to make a lot of lists, one of which is what I call 'DEAD IN THE WEB, which includes everyone that has died or been thoroughly destroyed in A TANGLED WEB Part 8: ENDGAME._

_Well, that is about it this time. Hope to hear some reviews from you all._

**DEAD IN THE WEB VIII**

**4-LOM – '**killed' by Starfleet team – used temporarily by Megatron

**Ace of Clubs **–destroyed by Wolverine

**Barnabas Collins – **killed by Jake Foley & Iron Man

**Black Manta** – drone – dead

**Black Power Ranger** – made drone – killed

**Bossk **– killed by General Martok

**Buzzsaw **– taken over by Borg – destroyed by Starscream

**Dengar **– killed by Predator

**Dr**. **Alchemy** – killed himself before turned into a drone

**Dr. Mindbender** - drone – dead

**Dummy **– blown up by Rouge predator

**Gambler** - drone - dead

**Georgia Sivana** – drone – dead

**Grumpy **– died fighting Xenomorph Queen

**Hordak **– killed by Predator

**Huntress **– killed during fight

**IG**-**88** – killed by Predator

**Invisible Man - Rodney Skinner **– killed at stray fire

**K-9** – companion of Sarah Jane Smith – destroyed by Ravage

**King of Clubs** – fell to death

**Kra **– crushed by the Thing

**Laserbeak **– taken over to Borg – destroyed by Ravage

**Lazon** – stunned in air – fell and died

**Lokar **– eaten by Zorak

**Lt**. **Vanessa Damphousse – **killed by Predator

**LuLu **– killed by Borg

**Magno Lad** – killed by flying Borg

**Marcus Cole **- fell from great height

**Mer-Man **– killed by Alien birth from chest

**Mettalus **– decapitated by Lister

**Mr. Mind** – dead – stepped on by Master

**Ocean Master **– killed by Mina Harker

**Octavia** – hacked up by Faith – DEAD

**Per Degaton **– killed by Mekanique

**Persuader **– killed by Predator

**Power Ring** – killed by Borg

**Psycho**-**Pirate** – killed by Borg

**Seska **– killed by Predator

**Shade **– killed by Predator

**Sigmund the Sea Monster **– died saving Ben 10

**Skywarp** – crashed – assumed assimilated

**Spikor **– killed by Alien birth from chest

**Sportsmaster **– killed during fighting

**Terra-Man & horse** – dead – killed by Predator

**Thundercracker **– taken over by Borg – destroyed by Bizarro

**Trickster** - drone – dead

**Tundro **– killed by Predator

**TwoBad **– killed by Alien birth from chest

**Vultak** – made drone – crashed and died

**Whiplash **– killed by Alien birth from chest

**Xenomorph Queen **– died fighting Grumpy

**Zuckuss **– killed by Predator


	28. Chapter 28

**A TANGLED WEB Part 8 Chapter 28**

**AUTHOR's NOTE: **_Sorry to have taken so long but my computer got sick and lost most of my information. I still don't have everything but I'm trying to make the best of it. I have decided to have a small glossary in the beginning of each act because I have so many characters that even I have a hard time trying to keep it all straight sometimes. And, if at all possible, please send some kind of review. Even a '_Hey, I like what you did with this character_' would be nice. Thanks._

**ACT 1**

Ambassador Leonard 'Bones' McCoy

Captain Benjamin Sisko

Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Captain Kathryn Janeway

Kes

Ro Laren

Spock

Batman a.k.a. Terry McGinnis

Captain Benjamin Sisko ran thru the brush using his arms to clear the foliage as best as he could. Ahead of him he could hear screams and phaser fire mixed with the thunderous roar of something huge.

Behind him he could hear Ro Laren following in his path; the mysterious Batman that had attached himself to their group had raced on ahead at an incredible pace considering the terrain. Looking up, he came to a stop and then tackled Ro so that they landed behind a massive tree. The area around them exploded into broken tree branches as they huddled in their unsure shelter.

"What was that?" asked an incredulous Ro Laren.

Sisko looked all around but saw nothing. "Something threw a tree aside."

"Did you see it?"

"The tree that was coming at us, yes; the thing that threw it, no."

They listened as more trees were pushed aside to give way to whatever was passing through.

"From the phaser shots we heard, the others must have encountered whatever threw that tree," commented Ro.

"We shouldn't have split up with the others to follow Megatron." He got to his feet and moved aside a few large branches that now littered all over.

"We needed to know what he was going to do and the others were traveling too slow. We made the right choice," she said, trying to be reassuring.

"And now we see what it may have cost us."

"Hindsight is always 20/20, sir."

Once clear of the drop zone they were able to pick up the pace again and soon saw their comrades. McCoy was examining Janeway while Spock took readings of the creature that had evidently left. Picard stood a few feet away with phaser out with one hand and scanning with his tricorder in the other.

"What happened here?" barked Sisko, not caring about protocol at the moment.

"First came an attack by our sniper friend," Picard answered, referring to Boba Fett. "He managed to stun Captain Janeway, but then a giant hand came down through the trees and took Kes. We fired on it. Thanks to the thick foliage, it must have only seen the shots coming from the sniper. The creature had actually torn up a tree and threw it at him, hopefully killing him."

"Where's Batman?" asked Ro.

"Went after the beast to try save Kes."

"Ro and I will go after--"

"No," answered Captain Picard. "I'll go with Ro. You can--"

"Picard." Sisko never felt comfortable around Picard. Sure, Picard had been an unwilling pawn to the Borg; Sisko knew that. He accepted it as a fact. But it had still been through Picard, once a mouthpiece of the Borg, that his wife had died at Wolf 359 along with the ship he had been serving on. Many of those he had served with, as well as some of their families, had also died. Not to mention all the other Starfleet vessels that had been destroyed there. Neither man could forget that. "Ro and I are faster than you."

"I can be very fast for my age," corrected Picard. "Besides I have some experience tracking--"

"Are you two roosters going to take time off of posturing to go rescue Kes anytime soon?" snapped McCoy. "All three of you go after whatever that was that took Kes. Spock and I can take care of Kathryn."

"But--" began Sisko.

"No 'buts'! Now you two make nice and go save Kes with Ro's help. And that's an order!" As they disappeared in the brush he added, "and Godspeed."

"General Martok wasn't with them," commented Spock.

"I wouldn't worry about General Martok," replied McCoy as applied another hypospray to Janeway's neck. "He's not one to shuffle off this mortal coil quietly. And as you well know those Klingons are damn hard to kill." He examined the results of his medical tricorder again. "Meanwhile, I'm going to take a moment to treat some of these cuts on Kathryn's face. That should provide a little comfort to her when she wakes up."

"Can you revive her, admiral?"

"What did I tell you about that admiral stuff, Spock?"

Spock raised an eyebrow. "As you wish, 'Bones'."

McCoy glanced up after sealing one of Janeway's cuts. "Why do you want to revive her now? She could use the rest; we all could, damn it."

"It's our sniper problem; I'm sure he'll try to take advantage now that we have divided our forces yet again."

McCoy frowned. "How about we compromise? Let's move her to a more hidden location that can also provide us with some cover. Then once that bounty hunting sniper returns, I'll revive Janeway."

Spock contemplated it for a moment. He knew that his old friend Admiral McCoy was thinking more like a physician than as leader, but he didn't think now was the time to point that out to him. "There seems to be a cave opening over there. We could take shelter there."

"All right then." They gently lifted Janeway, each man taking one of her arms over their shoulder. McCoy grunted. "Remind me to thank Q for the rejuvenation. I haven't been this active in decades."

"Is your back holding up?" Spock asked, with what might have been a note of concern.

"My back's probably doing better than yours. My only concern is that all this activity is moving my bowels something fierce. I think I'm going to be adding some 'McCoy' brand fertilizer to this lush land in a few moments."

"All I ask is that you add it somewhere outside the perimeter of the cave."

**ACT 2**

**Author's note:** _This is the second part of the big battle scene between the heroes and villains with several hundred players so I am going to include a list of the players so people can verify who was with what show and all that. Hopefully that will help everyone. Now some of these characters were already mentioned in my last posting so they might not be mentioned at this time, and there are some I will be using in the next part of this battle. If some of you think keeping all this straight in my head might be driving me mad, well then I guess you are right. If you think someone is supposed to be here but isn't, well, then they are on the other battlefield facing the Borg or have died earlier. I'd have to check my notes. So here we go…_

**THOSE HEROES THAT HAD ARRIVED IN THE TARDIS:**

**DOCTORS:** The second Doctor, the third Doctor, the fourth Doctor, the fifth Doctor, the eighth Doctor, the ninth Doctor, the tenth Doctor

-

**COMPANIONS OF TIME-LORDS:** Jamie McCrimmon, Dr. Liz Shaw, Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, Captain Mike Yates, Sergeant Benton, Sarah Jane Smith, Tegan Jovanka, Nyssa of Traken, Melanie 'Mel' Bush, Dr. Grace Holloway, Rose Tyler, Martha Jones

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**FIGHTERS FROM TARDIS: **

**ANDROMEDA:** Captain Dylan Hunt, Beka Valentine, Seamus Harper, Trance Gemini, Telemachus Rhade, Rommie, Doyle

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**ANGEL:** Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, Charles Gunn, Lorne, Winifred 'Fred' Burkle, Cordelia Chase, Harmony Kendall

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**BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER:** Xander Harris, Anya, Willow Rosenberg, Anya, Rupert Giles, Daniel 'Oz' Osborne, Riley Finn, Faith

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**GALAXY QUEST:** Jason Nesmith, Gwen DeMarco, Alexander Dane, Fred Kwan, Guy Fleegman, Tommy Webber, Laliari

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**GHOSTBUSTERS:** Dr. Peter Venkman, Dr. Raymond Stantz, Dr. Egon Spengler, Louis Tully, Winston Zeddmore, Slimer

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**HERCULOIDS:** Zandor, Zok, Igoo, Gloop

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**INCREDIBLES:** Elastigirl, Mr. Incredible, Frozone

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**LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN:** Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, Mina Harker, Dr. Henry Jekyll / Edward Hyde

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**MEN IN BLACK:** Agent Kay, Agent Jay

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**MUTANT X:** Shalimar Fox, Brennan Mulwray, Jesse Kilmartin

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**MYSTERY MEN:** The Blue Raja, Mr. Furious, The Shoveller, The Bowler, The Spleen, The Invisible Boy, The Sphinx

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**SKY HIGH:** Will Stronghold, The Commander, Jetstream, Mr. Jonathan Boy / All-American Boy, Mr. Medulla, Layla Williams, Warren Peace, Giant Man, Principal Powers, Coach Boomer

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**SPACE: ABOVE AND BEYOND:** Lt. Nathan West, Capt. Shane Vansen, Lt. Cooper Hawkes, Lt. Paul Wang, Lt. Col. Tyrus Cassius "T.C." McQueen

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**SPECIAL UNIT 2:** Detective Nicholas O'Malley, Captain Richard Page, Carl the Gnome

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**THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN:** Thundarr, Princess Ariel, Ookla the Mok

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**THUNDERCATS:** Lion-O, Tygra, Panthro, Cheetara, WilyKit, WilyKat, Ben-Gali, Pumyra, Lynx-O

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**VOLTRON:** Commander Keith Akira Kogane, Lance Charles McClain, Darrell "Pidge" Stoker, Princess Allura, Tsuyoshi "Hunk" Garett

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**ZOOM:** Marsha Holloway, Cindy Collins / Princess, Summer Jones / Wonder, Tucker Williams / Mega Boy

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**MISCELLANEOUS HEROES:** The Rocketeer

-

-

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**HEROES JUST ENTERING THE FIGHT- BROUGHT BY 7th DOCTOR:**

**AVENGERS:** Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Ant-Man, Wasp

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**FANTASTIC FOUR:** Invisible Woman, Human Torch, Mr. Fantastic, Thing

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**X-MEN:** Prof. X, Wolverine, Storm, Rogue, Beast, Iceman, Shadowcat, Colossus, Angel, Nightcrawler

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**MISCELLANEOUS HEROES:** Rygel from Farscape, Eric the Cavalier from Dungeons & Dragons, Enik from Land of the Lost, Cole from Tracker, Tia Malone from Escape to Witch Mountain, River Tam from Firefly, Jake Foley from Jake 2.0, Kai from Lexx, Sinbad from Sinbad, Sapphire and Steel from Sapphire & Steel, Maya from Space: 1999, Electric Woman and Dyna Girl from Electric Woman & Dyna Girl, Static Shock from Static Shock

-

-

-

**THE MASTER'S ARMY**

**DC COMICS:** Abra Kadabra, Alexei Luthor, Amazo, Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man, Baron Blitzkrieg, Bizarro, Black Adam, Brain, Brainiac, Brainwave, Captain Boomerang, Captain Cold, Catman, Catwoman, Cavalier, Chameleon Chief, Cheetah, Circe, Clayface, Clock King, Copperhead, Cosmic King, Deathbolt, Deathstroke the Terminator, Dr. Double X, Dr. Light, Dr. Polaris, Dr. Psycho, Dr. Sivana, Emerald Empress, Esper Lass, Felix Faust, Fiddler, Floronic Man, Garguax, General Immortus, Gentleman Ghost, Golden Glider, Hector Hammond, Hunter II, Ibac, Jack of Clubs, Joker, Kanjar Ro, Key, Killer Moth, King Kull, Lex Luthor, Lightning Lord, Major Disaster, Mano, Matter Master, Metallo, Minister Blizzard, Mirror Master, Mist, Mist Master, Monocle, Monsieur Mallah, Mr. Freeze, Multi-Man, Nemesis Kid, Neutrax, Owlman, Parasite, Penguin, Pied Piper, Poison Ivy, Prof. Amos Fortune, Prof. Ivo, Radiation Roy, Rag Doll, Riddler, Ron-Karr, Sabbac, Shadow Thief, Signalman, Silver Slasher, Sivana Jr., Solomon Grundy, Sonar, Spider Girl, Star Sapphire, Sun Emperor, Superwoman, Tattooed Man, Ten of Clubs, Terrus, Tharok, Thinker, Thorn, Titania, T.O. Morrow, Toyman, Two-Face, Tyr, Ultra-Humanite, Ultraman, Validus, Vandal Savage, Volcano Man, Weather Wizard, Wizard, Wotan

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**G.I. JOE:** Cobra Commander, Baroness, Destro, Major Bludd, Zartan, Buzzer, Gnawgahyde, Monkeywrench, Ripper, Road Pig, Thrasher, Torch, Zander, Zanya, Zanzibar, Zarana

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**HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE:** Skeletor, Beast Man, Evil-Lyn, Panthor, Tri-Klops, Jitsu

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**SHE-RA:** Shadow Weaver, Catra, Entrapta, Grizzlor, Imp, Modulok, Rattler, Scorpia, Tung Lashor, Horde Troopers

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**SPACE GHOST:** Brak, Moltar, Zorak, Sisto

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**TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES:** Shredder, Bebop, Rocksteady, General Traag, Krang, Foot ninjas

Xander leapt back to break away from the attack of the elder Yautja hunter only to stumble over the unconscious form of Ben-Gali of the Thundercats and villain Multi-Man, who was dead. The young hero raised his lightsaber to slice through a net projectile that had been fired at him before it could pin him down.

"I'm not going to let you get me that easy!" Xander jumped back up on his feet and then used his lightsaber to deflect a plasma blast up into the air where it narrowly missed the space dragon, Zok, flying overhead.

"Come on, Xander, focus on the force and all that jazz," he muttered to himself while trying not to breathe hard. He rolled aside as a spear embedded itself in the ground barely missing him. The faux Jedi took a sweeping swing at the alien humanoid's legs, but the Yautja easily jumped back and the used the power sword he had appropriated earlier from Hordak's dead hand to block another blow from Xander. The magic power sword and the lightsaber flared upon each contact, sometimes blinding Xander, leaving him to trust his Jedi instincts on whether to attack or duck. And yet Xander still managed to slip in a pool of Multi-Man's blood and fall flat on his back.

The alien hunter looked down at his prey. The elder Yautja was feeling his age at that moment. The excursion from the long fight had left him winded; his joints and back were flaring with pain. He had begun to think he may have found a worthy adversary to overcome him and end the pain that had come to settle down on him in his old age. But now he could see that while the young fighter with the energy sword was skilled, he was not yet a seasoned warrior. And thus not worthy of being struck down by.

In frustration, he engaged his shoulder mounted plasma canon so that he could end the fight and free himself to check on his younger charges. But before the plasma canon could fire, a circular red and white metal shield thrown through the air struck the weapon, damaging it and knocking the elder Yautja off balance.

The angered hunter turned to fire his net gun at his new attacker, a man dressed in a red, white and blue uniform.

Xander, seeing that his rescuer was about to be fired on, reached out to the force and sent a nearby ten pound rock flying so that it struck the arthritic hands of the elder Yautja.

The Elder cried out in pain, much to his shame at having his body betraying him. He refocused on his attackers knowing that he had to end this sooner than later. And perhaps collect a few more trophies before he expired.

The man in the red, white and blue outfit picked up his shield on the ground and then offered a hand to help Xander up. "I'm Captain America."

"Yeah, I know," Xander said. "The guy that did the telepathic update list as to who is on what side filled me in on that."

Captain America nodded. "That would be Professor X. But I don't recall this fellow you are facing on the mental chart the professor gave us."

They spread themselves out as they approached the Yautja in order to complete a two-prong attack.

"According to one of the Doctor's -don't ask me which one- our fellow here is more of an equal opportunity killer," commented Xander.

Captain America held back for a moment, hesitating on a thought. "Perhaps this is his people's territory. They could be reacting to our intrusion on their lands."

"Not quite," Xander said. "He's on safari and we're all the potential trophies he wants to take home to brag about in his old age as he elaborates telling stories of how he bagged us."

Captain America noted the net bag attached to the elder's belt; even more he noted the decapitated heads that were being carried in it. His frown tuned into a scowl. "I see."

The Elder Yautja visually assessed the interfering Human. He was pleased to note from Captain America's stance that he was an extremely skilled and experienced fighter. He was also amazed to note that the only weapon he seemed to carry was the circular metal shield that he had thrown with such precision. As for his other opponent, the young Human identified as Xander, his energy sword was rather remarkable, but the young man… He seemed quite skilled until loosing his concentration, at which point he became a much more easy prey.

The Elder hunter decided to make their deaths quick so he fired two Smart disks, flying bladed weapons that would seek the target that they were fired at.

Both men surprised him. Xander had not only struck at the Smart disk with his energy sword, but had cut it in half. Captain America had not bothered to duck but instead used his shield to bat the disk away where it cut an oncoming drone in half before getting stuck partway into the back of a rather pissed off General Traag who had been bludgeoning another drone to death with his rocky fist. And Captain America's shield hadn't even been damaged.

Seeing that it was quite possible that he was going to be taken down, the Elder hunter took a hand held plasma canon from his belt and fired it at the ground in front of them in order to force them to take cover from the flying debris. Then he leapt away. He didn't like the thought of leaving the fight, but he knew his chances of claiming them would be better if he could face them individually on another occasion. One of the hardest lessons to learn in the hunt is when to go in for the kill, and even harder, to know when not to try and make the kill.

**Act 3**

If asked, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce could not have told you how he had come to cross the battlefield unscathed to join those working on trying to undo the drone process. In truth, it had been after he had glimpsed the green-skinned Wotan magically summoning the Borg nanoprobes out of one of Shredder's Borg infected ninjas. Never had he seen anyone mix magic and technology with such a degree of success before. He felt awed as he tried to take mental notes. "What's that he's mixing together?" he whispered

"It's a warding powder," Ray Stantz of the Ghostbusters answered, in a hushed tone even as he watched in equal awe while Wotan ground the Borg nanites with his fist into part of the discarded armor from a fallen Horde Trooper.

Egon Spengler, also of the Ghostbusters, was more intent on taking readings of the ritual being performed with his spare EKG-meter. "He seems to be using an elemental binding spell similar to one I found referenced in a Nabuian manuscript. I believe he is joining it with the 'Crimson Bands of Cyttorak' that he keeps muttering under his breath. The power levels he's tapping into are astounding; I've had to dampen the range on my EKG-meter twice to keep it from exploding."

Wesley glanced over to the device in Egon's hand. "Would you mind showing me how that works later? It looks very useful for one in my line of work."

"What is it that you do?" asked Ray.

"Oh, I used to be a Watcher, which basically means I was responsible for the training and handling a Vampire Slayer, more or less, but now my team and I are monster slayer for the forces of good."

"Monsters, huh? Yeah, we've seen our share of those, but we focus mostly on ghosts." Ray pulled out one of his Ghostbuster business cards out of his uniform front pocket.

"Thank you," said Wesley, glancing down at the card. "Though I'm not sure that I can use it since we both come from parallel universes."

Ray shrugged. "In our line of business, you never know where you might end up."

"True enough," agreed Wesley. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out one of his Angel Investigations cards. "Here. If you are ever out our way, look us up and we'll see what we can do to lend a hand getting home."

"Keep it down, you two!" snapped the nervous villain, Brainwave, who had a large bald head on top of a scrawny body.

While others fought tooth and nail on the battlefield, an uneasy truce was being held in their small corner of the battlefield as people from both sides worked to restore those that had been infected by the Borg. When Wotan was freed of the connection to the Borg Collective by the ectoplasm explosion of Stay-Puff the Marshmallow Man, he had used that time to purge himself of the nanoprobes in his body as well as heal himself.

"Wotan," called the Borg drone that had once been the third generational Zorro. Since being freed of the Borg, he and a number of not fully processed drones had been working to undo the work the Borg had done to their bodies. "We are running low on ectoplasm."

"Then get more! Just don't interrupt me!" snapped the evil mage as he tried to concentrate on the power he needed to use.

One of the freed drones carefully removed the prosthetic Borg limb, revealing the stump that used to be Zorro's right hand. "What little remains is evaporating quickly. We need the barrier you promised now."

"What do you need the ectoplasmic ooze for?" Dr. Peter Venkman had relished the chance to break away from the fight after the wrestling forms of Giant-Man and the Animal-Mineral-Vegetable Man had almost crushed him while he had been blasting away at the magnetic villain Dr. Polaris. Behind him had been the villain called the Killer Moth who had been about to shot him only to be aptly crushed like a bug instead by the wrestling behemoths.

The Zorro/drone turned to Peter. "The ectoplasm interferes with the signal that keeps the drones connected to the Collective Mind. It also affects some of the components on our person, and allows our minds to be free. Without it, we will revert to being zombie-like slaves of the Borg again."

"Uh oh, guys." Winston, another of the Ghostbusters tapped on Peter's shoulder. "Looks like some of them are already receiving a signal from the Borg."

As they looked around they could see some of the drones that had been temporarily freed start to stiffen.

Wesley glanced about for weapons and shelter. Suddenly inspired he reached down and scooped up some of the residual ectoplasm and mixed it with a little dirt to give it more shape. They he threw it like a baseball at one of the closest drones who had been Zorro. The ectoplasm stuck to the drone's chest and Zorro visibly relaxed. "Thank you," he managed to say.

Ray, following Wesley's lead, jumped up and down repeatedly into a small puddle of ectoplasm spraying those closest around with the ghostly charged residue.

"There isn't enough ectoplasm left," pointed out Egon.

Winston powered up his proton pack. "Looks like it's time to go home school again."

"We must delay them," said Zorro. "We must do whatever we can to give Wotan a chance to free us."

"Wait a minute." Peter turned to his friends. "All we need is ectoplasm, right? No problem." He turned and whistled as loudly as he could. "Hey Spud! Get over here!"

"Why do you want Slimer?" asked Ray.

Egon smacked his forehead. "Oh course."

Meanwhile Slimer had been chasing after the flying form of Imp, the smallest member of the Hordak's Evil Horde much like a dog would chase a cat. Hearing Peter calling to him, however, Slimer broke off his pursuit.

Stantz was backing up as the nanite infected Jitsu, one of Skeletor's warriors, walked purposely toward him, or rather toward Wotan who was behind him. Rattler of the Evil Horde was likewise moving toward Wotan only to be mentally forced back by the Thinker and Brainwave. On the ground, Brak fought against his infected brother, Sisto, who was also under Borg control again. T.O. Morrow and Sivana, Jr. huddled behind Dr. Sivana while the little mad scientist used a white sound gun to knock several of the drones down. Zeddmore was trying to push back the infected Captain Nemo only willing to use his proton pack as a last resort.

Peter Venkman problem was bigger than that by several hundred pounds. Coming toward him was a large gorilla that at one time answered to the name of Monsieur Mallah while the brain displayed in the glass jar on a pedestal that the gorilla carried was that of an evil French scientist only now known as the Brain, a long time foe of the Doom Patrol. Both beings showed the grey tell-tale circuitry on their surfaces; fluid spilled from the glass jar from the hole near the top where the nanoprobes had been introduced to the Brain.

"Oh great, and now the circus comes to town." Venkman powered up his proton pack. "Ok, Mr. Mighty Joe Young, stay back or I'll turn you into a crispy critter!" Instead the large gorilla continued coming toward him. "Wotan, tell me your recipe is ready."

"Soon, Human. Just keep them back a little longer."

"I'm not sure we have any longer!"

Flying down next to him, Slimer raised his arms. "Ta da!"

"About time." Reaching out, Venkman grabbed what he could of the green ghost, and pushed the startled spook into and through nanoprobe infected form of Monsieur Mallah, leaving a thick layer of ectoplasmic ooze on the back and front side of the gorilla.

Slimer looked annoyed at Venkman, but Venkman cried out in joy as Monsieur Mallah looked about in bewilderment. "It worked! Slimer, quick, fly through the other Borg controlled people. It's up to you; only you can save them."

"Me?" The little green ghost went from a look of surprise to one of determination, flying first through Jitsu and then on to the others.

Venkman wiped his ooze covered hands on the chest of the drone that claimed to be Zorro. "Here you go. You definitely need this more than I do. Ugh, I'll never get used to this stuff." He flicked his fingers to try shake more of the ectoplasm off only to get some in his mouth. "Oh yuck! How come I always get that stuff in my face?"

When he was able to look up again, he saw that the glass dome that encased the Brain, Monsieur Mallah's creator, master and only friend, had disengaged itself from his pedestal and sprouted six long, thin metal legs. Jumping down to the ground, the Brain-mobile moved rapidly on it's metal legs toward Wotan, who was still chanting over his mixed ingredients.

"No you don't!" Venkman raced forward and kicked hard, sending the Brain-mobile flying out into the combat zone.

"No!" cried out the ape, Monsieur Mallah, who then barreled past Venkman and after the bouncing Brain.

Venkman slowly picked himself off the ground. "Well, at least it could never be said that I came between an ape and his brain." He gingerly put his foot down only to grimace in pain. "Yep, I broke it. Damn!"

"Hey, Venkman, I think Wotan's on the final part of his spell," called out Ray.

"About time," snarled Brak, who was struggling to keep his Borg-controlled brother Sisto pinned to the ground. He jumped back as Slimer dove down and phased through Sisto and into the ground. The pudgy green specter came out of the ground a few feet away with arms raised while cheering.

Wotan walked past the worn out but exuberant Slimer to a point about ten feet from them and then began to slowly pour the mixture as he walked in a circle around them.

Ray nudged Egon. "What's the EKG reading?"

Egon frowned. "Something must be wrong. I'm barely reading anything."

"Of course not," stated Wesley. "The energy for a ward of this magnitude can't be transfer to it's components until the circle in complete."

Egon and Ray looked at each other in embarrassment. "We knew that." "Yeah, of course we knew."

"Guys?" Venkman looked past them at something. "Tell me you guys know something about a big white ape."

"It's only logical." "The circuit needs to be completed before it can be powered. Even Peter knows that."

"Big white ape!"

They regarded him with confusion.

He, in turn, pointed enthusiastically behind them. "Big! White! Ape!"

They turned just in time to see the rushing massive white ape and throw themselves to the side as it raced past them.

Looking up from where they had fallen on the ground, they could see that the large albino gorilla wearing a strange type of red vest had come to a stop next to Wotan; to add to their amazement the big ape had begun to speak.

"Wotan! I have need of your expertise!" said the white ape, in what could only be considered a frantic tone.

"In case you haven't noticed, Ultra-Humanite, I am currently preoccupied with a task of some importance."

The large ape's nostrils flared more from fear than Wotan's brush off. "Time may be of the essence!"

"It usually is." Wotan continued pouring the mixture of crushed nanites, a few other crucial ingredients, including his blood, bringing the circle closer to completion with every step.

The Ultra-Humanite held out his arm which showed a savage bite wound and quite a bit of blood. Now that the white ape wasn't moving anymore other claw marks could be seen on it's body. "I tell you I was bitten by a werewolf!"

Wotan glanced over while continuing to pour his ingredients. "It does rather look like the handiwork of a werewolf. Messy beasts. And often times contagious, as well."

The ape that was the Ultra-Humanite seemed on the verge of hyperventilating. "Does that mean I now carry the curse of Lycanthropy? Can you cure me if I have contracted this malady?"

Wotan seemed to almost pause in retrospect. "You know, I've never actually tried curing someone of Lycanthropy. I'm more the type who curses someone with it. I have heard it is much harder to remove the curse then to apply it. Especially those placed on a person by me."

The albino ape shuffled nervously after Wotan as the evil green mage continued with his project. "What if I transfer my brain to another body? The contamination of the bite may not have crossed the blood-brain barrier to my brain yet; if I were to transfer my brain to a different host body very soon, would the werewolf curse still apply to my brain?" Being the genius that he was, the Ultra-Humanite had had his brain surgically transferred out of his weak, old original body to several other host bodies, some of which he stayed in for years at a time. He'd experienced being a woman for a number of years; he had even had his brain placed into that of a giant flying ant in order to contend physically with his longtime rival, Superman. The current simian body he occupied was one he had bred purposely to give him strength and endurance. No, it was not fear of a deformed body that bothered him, but what the werewolf curse could do to his mind, his greatest and most cherished asset.

"Yes, any decent curse would affect all of you." Not out of a desire to help his fellow villain, but of needing to complete his current task Wotan decided to offer his services to the terrified villain. "I am almost done with this. I'll inspect the wound then. Meanwhile try to think of what physical traits this werewolf had. It's always helpful to know what breed of werewolf it is."

The Ultra-Humanite just stared at him in bewilderment. "How would I know what it's pedigree is? I'm a scientist, not a student of the arcane. What I can tell you about the monster is that it was huge and ferocious with long, sharp claws and teeth. As soon as it broke off it's attack on me to chase after Skeletor's cat-beast, Panthor, I hightailed it over here."

Meanwhile, Wesley and the Ghostbusters were comparing notes as to what they thought of the Ultra-Humanite. "Do you think he's a demon of some sort?" asked Wesley. "It's certainly bigger than any normal ape I've heard of."

Egon waved the EKG meter in the direction of the white ape. "Wotan shows a lot of power, but not the ape. It's not magical in nature. And judging by that surgical scar going around the top of it's head, I'd be willing to bet that it's not natural to nature either."

Winston blinked. "You think someone played Frankenstein with that thing as a result?"

Venkman threw his arm over Winston's shoulder. "That's what I love about this job: the variety of challenges we come against."

Ray frowned. "I don't think they were using the Frankenstein concept, Winston. I think it was more along the lines of brain swapping."

"That runs along my theory," agreed Egon. "The body is most likely a mutation; the albino appearance is perhaps a result of the genetic manipulation during it's creation."

Venkman was aghast. "You mean someone made a body like that on purpose so that they could transplant their own brain into it!?! Geez, talk about making a monkey out of yourself."

Wesley gulped. "And he's not even the biggest monkey." The others looked to him in confusion as he pointed in the distance with a trembling finger.

"Oh…" started Ray.

"…my…" added Peter.

"God!" concluded Winston.

----

The massive form of the composite battleship Voltron struggled against the force fields that the giant Borg drone had created to push it backwards. Inside the body cavity of the Voltron ship Commander Keith Akira Kogane tried to regain the robot's balance but he couldn't stop it's fall back onto a small hill on it's back.

"Damn it! That's a new trick." He did a quick glance over the readings of the gauges. "Lance, one of the servo-connectors to your ship losing power. Your 'arm' is starting to go limp to the responses I'm sending to it."

"I'm working on it already," answered Lance through his monitor.

Pidge's voice piped up from his screen. "I warned you guys that this could happen. I said we should have upgraded to the Spacely Space sprockets at our last refit. But you all wanted to stick with the cheaper Cogswell cogs."

From another monitor screen, Hunk, whose Yellow Lion ship made up the left leg of the Voltron composite fighter unit, spoke up. "We can argue about it later. I'll even volunteer to do all the upgrading with the sprockets myself if we can just survive this." Tsuyoshi 'Hunk' Garett was trying hard to keep up with the damages to his ship. A few controls in his ship had already failed causing a small fire on the left side of his panel. He'd been fortunate to have been able to put it out but now had to wear an oxygen mask due to the smoke in his small cockpit. Unfortunately, one of the controls that had been damaged had been ventilation so now the smoke had nowhere to go and was partially blinding his stinging eyes.

"Here she comes again!" cried out Princess Allura from her cockpit in the Blue Lion ship that made up the right leg of Voltron.

The giant drone was close to the same size as the mecha known as Voltron. The organic half that made up the large drone had originally been the villainess known as Giganta of the Legion of Doom, captured when she had tried to escape service to the Master and ran into drones of the Borg. Because of her large form, the Borg had used a good part of the segments collected from the atomic powered, sentient robot Mr. Atom they had captured earlier and replaced her right arm, leg and part of her head.

With Voltron still on the ground, Kogane kicked out with the blue right leg into the chest of the Giganta / Mr. Atom drone. The drone grabbed the leg and held on while two tubules the size of fire hoses emerged from Giganta's arm and dove into the right arm of Voltron.

"It's penetrating my hull!" hollered McClain.

Commander Kogane fought with his controls. "I'm trying to break it loose!"

"I'm loosing power!" added McClain.

"I'm firing," informed Pidge, temporarily overriding Kogane's control of his segment of Voltron to fire point blank at the giant drone's chest.

After the flare of the blast faded, they noted to their amazement that the drone was still there.

"Not even a scorch mark," comment Tsuyoshi 'Hunk' Garett. "How is that even possible?"

"She's adapted her force fields to the energy frequency of our weapons," informed Commander Kogane. "When they connected those hoses to Lance's lion ship she learned what frequencies our weapons are on."

"Then we disconnect her," answered Princess Allura.

McClain's was started to look more concerned on his screen just before it went blank.

"McClain!" shouted Hunk. "We have to do something."

Commander Kogane, with control of Pidge's vessel once again, tried grabbing the tubules in order to extract them, only to be shocked by a force field. "I can't stop it."

"I'm going to try something," informed Princess Allura. "Make sure you rescue Lance first."

"First?" Commander Kogane looked at the screen that displayed the Arusian princess. "What are you… Wait! You're disengaging your ship!"

As the right leg of Voltron was disengaged, Princess Allura engaged her rocket thrusters away from the main form of Voltron. And since the Giganta / Mr. Atom drone was holding her ship to it's chest, it was forced backwards causing the tubules to be pulled out.

"We can't hold the form; everybody disengage!" Commander Kogane barked orders as he freed his lion ship from the others. "Pidge, Hunk, get Lance out of his ship; it's been compromised. I'll see to the princess."

As the leader of the Voltron Force, Keith felt protective of those under his charge and refused to let any of them to be injured or killed. His ship had barely had time to complete it's change to it's lion-like configuration before he was already firing on the drone that was still being kept off balance by the thrust of Princess Allura's vessel.

"Get out of there!" he told her visage on his monitor.

"She's holding me tight," said Princess Allura. "I may have to use the fail-safe."

"Not acceptable. You wouldn't have a chance to get free of the blast."

"Commander,--"

"You are not blowing yourself up! Do you hear me?"

_I can hear you_, came a feminine voice in both of their heads. _I think I have an alternative solution._

Keith couldn't believe what he was hearing, but considering all that they had seen in the last twenty-four hours he knew he shouldn't be too amazed.

By the time Pidge and Hunk had rescued McClain from his now infected ship, they flew up to lend a hand with rescuing their other teammate. They could see that the princess was still using her thrusters to push the drone back and that their commander was using his lion-ship's blasters to disrupt the ground beneath the massive drone to keep it off balance. But they were unprepared when an ape the size of the giant drone stood up from behind a hill and savagely grappled the drone from the behind.

_Do not be alarmed_, said a feminine voice in their head. _My name is Kes and I've brought a friend to help. He doesn't have a formal name, but the natives of the island he is from call him Kong._

-----

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**

_Yes, I brought in King Kong. I couldn't help myself. After my computer crash and everything, I just needed a little treat for myself to get the writing flowing again. Plus, I think with Kes's extra abilities (_please remember that in this story Kes has been brought back to corporeal form by Q_) that she could have a good amount of influence on Kong though not control._


	29. Chapter 29

**A TANGLED WEB Part 8 Chapter 29**

**ACT 1**

**ON GALLIFREY**

**(roll call)**

The Master from DOCTOR WHO

Mekanique from METROPOLIS (1927) & DC COMICS

Deadshot from DC COMICS

Trap-Jaw from MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE

Mantenna from SHE-RA & MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE

Captain Nazi from DC COMICS

The Doctor (1st incarnation) from DOCTOR WHO

Susan from DOCTOR WHO

**(those that come from TARDIS)**

Concussion from ZOOM

Invisible Girl from THE INCREDIBLES

Agent Tom Sawyer from LEAGUE OF EXTRA-ORDINARY

Ian Chesterton from DOCTOR WHO

Agent F / Frank the Pug from MEN IN BLACK

K-9 from DOCTOR WHO

Pythia from DOCTOR WHO

Rassilon from DOCTOR WHO

----------------

"Clear." Deadshot motioned for the others in his party to cross the intersection next to an exotic park and join him on the other side.

The golden gynoid Mekanique preceded the time-lord known as the Master with green costumed Captain Nazi following right behind. Trap-Jaw and Mantenna, both of whom had served under Skeletor, pushed the two captives along. The Doctor, known as the first incarnation of the being to use that moniker, said nothing, but kept a watchful eye on Trap-Jaw and the vice-like grip the villain kept on his grand-daughter Susan's arm.

Their venture toward the Gallifreyian palace had so far been without incident as they were able to bypass the few people who were about stealthfully. Once at the castle, they would learn who was the ruling power. If it was the infamous Pythia, after the Master had killed her he would have to reinvent most of the mechanisms of time-travel himself, which he was prepared to do. But the scenario he hoped for was that Rassilon had already defeated Pythia and had set many of the time principles to use so that all the Master had to do was assume control. That being the case, they made their way toward the palace to sneak in thru secret passages that the Master had known to have existed at this time.

"That is far enough," spoke a deep voice from the shadows.

Deadshot whirled and took aim as someone stepped out from the deep shadows produced by some of the larger foliage in the park. A stern looking man walked forward and made an idle gesture towards Deadshot. The costumed assassin fired his wrist-mounted guns only to suddenly become unmoving. Those looking on could even see one of the bullets floating still in the air between the marksman and his target. Even part of the flare from firing his custom-made guns was still as if it were frozen in time, which it was.

Eager to prove his bravado, Captain Nazi flew quickly toward the newcomer only to fall to the ground halfway there and become enveloped in his green uniform. As they others watched, a confused, blonde baby emerged crawling from the clothing and began to wail.

Trap-Jaw, using Susan as a shield, was about to use his mechanical arm to shoot the newcomer when he realized that the prosthetic limb had become too heavy to hold up. Loosing his hold on Susan, he fell, hitting the ground hard. "W-what happened? My hip! I think I broke my hip!" Susan, wide-eyed with surprise, backed away from the now very elderly villain lying on the ground reaching out to her for help.

"Who are you?" demanded the Master.

"That doesn't matter to you," answered the man. "What does matter is that you are stopped from acting on this foolish plan of yours to take control of Gallifrey."

The Master bristled in anger and outrage. He held his weapon, the Tissue Compression Eliminator that he used to crush his victims to death, and pointed it at the newcomer. "Who sent you here? Was it the Doctor?" He stole a quick glance to his prisoner, the first incarnation of the Doctor, but his long time rival seemed as surprised as he was.

The man's smile was cold and confident. "You cannot harm me. I will not permit it."

The Master made to fire his weapon, only to watch in dismay as it crumpled into dust in his hand. "Who are you?" he asked again while shouting this time. "Mekanique, how's he doing this?"

The golden female-shaped android raised her chin before speaking. "He is emitting chronal energies in a manner that I am entirely unfamiliar with."

Behind Mekanique, Mantenna stood with his four legs shaking in fear. "Wh-wh-what do we do, Master? Do we run?"

The Master snarled. "Never! Mekanique! Kill this intruder!"

Mekanique raised and pointed her arm at the newcomer. The man raised his hand in response. A blast of energy from Mekanique's arm went out and struck an invisible shield around the man.

"You are the intruders here; not me," the man said, matter-of-factly.

Mekanique raised her other arm and fired with both. "His shield is redirecting the energy of my blasts to another place in time."

"It is over," stated the man. "Over before it even begins."

"It's over when I say it's over!" spat the evil time-lord. "Mekanique, blast the pavement in front of him! Shower him with fragmented debris! I don't care what it takes but kill him now!"

The golden female-shaped android raised her chin before speaking. "He is emitting chronal energies in a manner that I am entirely unfamiliar with."

"What is this?" demanded the Master. "What have you done to her?"

The man chuckled. "You call yourself a time-lord, but you don't even know what has been done in front of you?" He tisked mockingly. "Truly, Gallifrey must have lost much of it's greatness by the time you came to be."

The golden female-shaped android raised her chin before speaking. "He is emitting chronal energies in a manner that I am entirely unfamiliar with."

The Master frowned. "You've placed her in a time-loop. She's reliving the same moment over and over again."

"Very good. Slow on the uptake, but still the right answer."

The Master bristled in fury. "Who are you to talk so condescendingly to me?"

The man stood straight and tall. "I am Rassilon, ruler and master of Gallifrey and all it ever shall be."

"Rassilon…" The Master bared his teeth and glared in anger, but said nothing further. His plan could only work if he could have caught the fledgling ruler unawares.

Rassilon, knowing that the Master had given up for now, nodded. "And now that you know you will never succeed it is time for you to go."

A familiar grinding noise filled the air as the familiar shape of the telephone box shaped TARDIS came into view near them. A minute later the doors flung open as six of it's occupants hurried out. The robotic K-9 rolled in close and aimed his muzzle weapon at the Master.

Ian Chesterton called out over to the Doctor. "Doctor, is everything all right?"

Susan had flung herself into her '_grandfather's_' arms for solace now that they were safe. Both ignored the stooge Mantenna, who was shaking from fear and holding his arms up in surrender.

"Doctor?" Ian called again.

"We're fine. We're just fine," he responded. He watched as Concussion took custody of Mantenna while Invisible Girl first picked up the fussing infant Captain Nazi and then used her super powers to create an invisible stretcher underneath the elderly Trap-Jaw.

"We were on our way to get more help, when you called the TARDIS here," explained Ian. "How did you manage to do that?"

"I didn't," replied the Doctor, who was staring Rassilon.

"What about this fella? I can't seem to budge him." Agent Tom Sawyer tapped the still forms of Deadshot with his knuckles. With a casual flick of his wrist, Deadshot collapsed unconscious to the ground like a puppet with his strings cut. "Okay, I guess that works."

"Take this guy in with the others." Frank the Pug trotted around as if he owned the place. "Make sure you get those weapons off his wrists before you tie him up, too. And use the wire; not the rope. There's no reason he should be more comfortable than you were, right?"

With a grunt, Sawyer managed to get Deadshot up with an arm over his neck. "Don't suppose you want to give me a hand?"

The canine-like alien glared. "Funny. Boy, I've never heard that one before," Frank said with heavy sarcasm.

The golden female-shaped android raised her chin before speaking. "He is emitting chronal energies in a manner that I am entirely unfamiliar with."

"What's with the tin lady?" Frank asked. "She on the fritz?"

"She will stay with me," Rassilon spoke up.

"Like hell she will. These bozos all have a date in court, and I-"

"She will stay with him, Agent F," the Doctor said hurriedly, not wanting to leave on a bad note with the most famous, and often times infamous, time-lord to have ever lived on Gallifrey.

Ian, twisting the Master's arms behind him, forced the prisoner toward the TARDIS. The Master grunted at the indignity of being manhandled by the human, but kept his eye on Rassilon until he was forced into the TARDIS. K-9 rolled on after them in order to keep the Master in view.

"Susan, dear, would you be so kind," said the Doctor, "as to let me have a word alone with…our benefactor here."

"Are you sure, grandfather?"

Her look of concern brought a smile to his face. "Very sure."

Nodding, she bent down to pick up Frank, who started to protest until she began to scratch behind his ears.

The Doctor watched her walk back to the TARDIS before returning his concerns to Rassilon. "How did you know he would be here?"

Rassilon snorted. "By looking into the future and taking the appropriate precautions, of course."

"We are forbidden from looking into our own futures. The ramifications from such-"

Rassilon had heard more that enough. "Do not dare presume to tell me what to do! I know of the dangers which is why I created those very laws! Which is also why I alone am exempt from Gallifreyian laws concerning time!"

"But-"

"Your adventure here is over. You should be more concerned with your return to the battle with the Borg in that little micro-universe you had just come from."

"Yes, well,…" The Doctor hesitated as his mind scrambled over various arguments to present to this legendary time-lord. "I don't suppose you could give us something that we can use against the Borg?"

For a moment, the Doctor saw a hint of compassion on that stern face. "Absolutely not. I have an agreement with the Q Continuum which forbids them from interfering with Gallifrey and from time-lords interfering with them."

"I've never heard of such an agreement."

"Irrelevant."

"You can't possibly be blaming my future incarnations and myself for this fiasco, are you?"

"No." Rassilon pointed into the air right in front of him and a small 3-dimensional holographic image of the Doctor's TARDIS being hit by quantum tunnel cutting through the very fabric of the multiverse. "Your encounter with these so-called Sliders occurred before the entity known as Q involved himself in these matters. So you and your future incarnations are clear of any implications. And since Q never made a move toward Gallifrey he is likewise clear of misdoing."

Looking down, the Doctor nodded. "So coming here has changed nothing."

"On the contrary. The Master is your prisoner as well as some of his agents. Plus, you have one of the few vehicles capable of transporting you back to the battlefield. I would say you are ahead of the game."

"Except for the fact that this is no game."

They exchanged hard looks, during which the Doctor could feel a telepathic probe from Rassilon. Breaking away, the Doctor headed for his TARDIS. Neither man spoke another word.

**ACT 2**

**THE LAND OF THE LOST**

**(those mentioned on the battle scene will be listed at the end of this post)**

Dr. Liz Shaw tried ignoring the melee around her as she sewed the gunshot wound in Captain Mike Yates shoulder closed. She had been pleased to note that when extracting the bullet, during which he had fortunately passed out, that the bullet had just missed nicking the top of one of his lungs, so now all she had to worry about was to keep him from bleeding to death or getting an infection.

"So is that it then? Is he going to live?" asked Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart.

"He should," she said as she attempted to tie off the stitches. "That is as long as he doesn't get shot again while we are in this battle zone. Can you hand me that bandage?" She indicated her medical kit that she had taken off one of the fallen medics that had been serving in the UNIT under the brigadier.

The brigadier ducked below the rocks and log that he was using for cover before pushing aside a few items in the bag to get one of the sealed bandages. "The Doctor sure got us into a sticky wicket this time."

She tore open the small envelope that contained the gauze bandage with her teeth, something she would have never done in a hospital. "Considering what he told us was at stake, could we have really dared to turn him down?"

"Of course not," he responded with more than a hint of annoyance. "I always knew he was keeping quite a bit from us, but nothing to this extent." He ducked down lower as an explosion went off nearby. Dr. Shaw automatically leaned over Captain Yates to cover his unconscious form with her own body. When the dust had mostly settled she leaned up again, careful to not brush the dust onto Captain Yates.

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart glanced over the rocks again only to duck as something flew past him. "Damn those ninjas!" He fired off a volley at the leaping Foot Ninjas but was only more frustrated when he realized that he hadn't hit any of them.

Both of them prepared for a fight as two people jumped down beside them.

"Mr. Furious sent us to help you out over here," said an enthusiastic young African-American male.

The brigadier looked over their brightly colored costumes. "You're some of those extraordinary chaps with unusual abilities, yeah?"

"That's us!" said the other fellow, a white man with a pale, blemished complexion and greasy hair.

"Ha! Perfect timing! The ninjas are just about to overrun this position!" The brigadier took a moment to fire on the ninjas again.

"Ninjas?" The pale man froze, a look of uncertainty passed over his face. "I thought by volunteering to come over here we were getting away from the ninjas."

"We can do this!" insisted the younger man, who gripped his friend's arm.

"We can?"

"You aim and I'll pull." He made a quick pulling motion with his hand. "Besides, now that we are here we don't really have a choice but to fight."

"There is always surrender."

The younger man shook his head. "They'd kill us anyway. So we have to fight. Even if it is to the bitter end."

The pale man nodded, picking up some of the younger man's resolve. "Well, we might as well see how many we can take down before they get us."

"What are you going to do?" asked Dr. Shaw. "You don't seem to have any weapons on you."

The pale man tried to give her a steely look. "Ma'am, my body is a weapon." He turned to his young black companion. "Are you ready, Invisible Boy?"

The Invisible Boy had glanced over the barrier. "The nearest targets are at ten o'clock and one, Spleen. Both roughly thirty-five feet away."

Hunched over, the Spleen hurried and put his back against the wall. Grabbing a handful of dirt off the ground, he let it gently sprinkle back to the ground while he looked to confirm the wind direction. Satisfied, he nodded to his friend and held out a finger. "On three, okay?"

"What are you going to do?" asked Dr. Shaw.

"One."

"It's okay, we're professionals," Invisible Boy said with a grin.

"Two."

"He's not even facing the right way," she emphasized with a look of dismay.

"Three!"

The man calling himself the Spleen stood partially up and pointed his butt out into the battlefield. Before Dr. Shaw could comprehend what he might be doing, Invisible Boy pulled his friend's finger and a great gust of wind burst silently from the older man's butt cheeks, first at one ninja and then at another. To her amazement, both oncoming ninjas staggered for a brief moment before collapsing to the ground as though dead.

"Did he just…?" Dr. Shaw began while Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart openly gapped.

"I was cursed by an old gypsy woman when I was a teenager," explained the Spleen with a grin.

"They're rallying!" interrupted Invisible Boy with a yell.

The Spleen moved into place again taking aim with his rear.

"They won't fall for that again," the brigadier said with a calculated tone. "The rest of the rats will be holding their collective breathes."

Guessing that the brigadier had an idea, the Spleen asked, "What do you suggest?"

The brigadier's face took on a mean grin. "Give them another bout of your super-flatulence and when they get closer I'll give them what for," he answered while digging rapidly through his pockets.

The Spleen looked to Invisible Boy who shrugged not knowing what the military man had in mind either. The Spleen took position again while Invisible Boy repeated the finger-tugging procedure.

"It's not working!" called out Dr. Shaw, who risked spying on their attackers. "They're still coming!"

"Let them come to their doom," responded the brigadier as he brandished a cigarette lighter. Leaning over, he easily lit the toxic, highly flammable air which produced a thirty foot fireball straight at their attackers. The Spleen, startled by the flare, produced an extra burst of flatulence that extended another fifteen feet.

Three of the Foot ninjas had been engulfed by the sudden flames, setting their clothes on fire. They had sense enough to drop to the ground and roll to try get the flames out but Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart quickly shot them down. The last smoldering ninja hurried away as Invisible Boy let out a cheer.

Elsewhere on the field of battle, the bad guys were proving to be more formidable than the heroes. The super-strong Neanderthal King Kull, long time foe of the Captain Marvel Family, had managed to knock out the X-Man known as Colossus and was using his metal body as a weapon by swinging him around by the ankles, battering Mr. Incredible away first and then the Commander. The Wizard, a villain from Earth 2, had managed to hypnotize Ookla the Mok and set him against Mega Boy, who backed away in fear from the fearsome looking opponent.

The serpentine villain Copperhead had wrapped himself around the Shoveller and constricted so as to crush him to death, but the hero had managed to swing his weapon of choice up and smack it into Copperhead's face, causing him to release his victim. Copperhead hiss in fury, jumping onto the Shoveller, intending to bite him with his poisoned fangs, only to find that the hero had been turned to stone. "Who daresss?"

"My apologies, Copperhead. You looked like you could use a hand." There standing over the fallen form of one of the UNIT soldiers stood a man in a black magician's outfit.

"Wizard, why didn't you let me kill my prey?"

The Wizard rolled his wand casually between his thumb and first two fingers; an insignificant gesture, but one that made the serpentine villain cringe back a foot. "You can kill him later if you wish," stated the Wizard casually. "I've only placed him in a form of suspended animation because we may need him for now. And we need to make our move soon. Look and see." He pointed dramatically to an encounter on the far end of the battlefield.

Orange silicone lifeform General Traag was limping slowly to safety with a Yautja disk imbedded halfway into his back. Meanwhile, Krang, the warlord from Dimension X, screamed for aid from the confines of his human-shaped exo-suit that the Borg had immobilized with a stun beam. "I don't want to be part of your damn Collective! I work better alone or at least when I'm in charge! Traag, come back here and save me!"

"Soon the influx of Borg drones will be so numerous that we will not be able to fight against each other," stated the Wizard. "So we must end this now. While we still have some chance of victory."

Copperhead hissed angrily. "You wisssh for us to join forcesss with them?"

"I agree with the Wizard's assessment." Lex Luthor hurried over, followed by Brainiac, Cosmic King, the Key, and Vandal Savage. "If we don't find a way to join forces with the heroes, then we will inevitably join them in the ranks of the Borg."

Key gripped his key-like laser rifle tightly while he watched Cosmic King transmute air into a metal barrier between them and the direction of the Borg. "I think we are out of options. The key to our survival lies with the heroes."

"If we are to fight another day, we must do this. So says Vandal Savage!"

"I calculate our chances of success to be 16.8356 percent more likely of success if we join forces with the heroes now."

"So it's agreed." Luthor's brow furrowed. "Now we just have to convince the heroes of that."

_I think I can help in that area_, said a weak voice in their heads.

Luthor resisted the urge to turn on an anti-telepathy device that he had sewn into his collar ever since learning that the Martian Manhunter was telepathic. "And you are…?"

_You may call me Professor X. My students and I belong to one of the groups that your fellow villains are facing_. His thought faltered for a moment. _My apologies. My mental battle with your Hector Hammond left me more drained than I first thought._

_I almost had him, _came the whiny thoughts of Hammond. _But he cheated. He had help from a telepath that is indigenous to this land._

"Enough, Hammond." Luthor shook off the simpering loser's thoughts. "Can you make this so, Professor X?"

_Indeed_, came the telepath's reply. _Enik and I are already in contact with the Doctor. He agrees that joining forces is our best bet for all of us to surviving this_.

Luthor nodded, knowing that was going to be their answer. The heroes could be so predictable at times. "Professor X, I have a question for you."

_Yes?_

He could sense the others staring at him; he ignored them. "The one who calls himself the Master, is he still around?"

There was a moment before there was an answer. _I don't believe so._

"Hey, we have some activity," called Cosmic King.

There, coming out from where the Borg were now starting to swarm was a young blonde haired woman wielding a large scythe that seemed to cut through anything the Borg tried to use to block her. Right on her heels was a tall, gaunt man in black robes that seemed determined to catch her.

"That –that man!" exclaimed the Wizard. "That's Death itself chasing her!"

The Key snorted. "And people say I'm overly dramatic."

------------

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**

Sorry for the long delay. Life hasn't been very kind lately. Hoping for a change.

Dr. Liz from DOCTOR WHO

Captain Mike Yates from DOCTOR WHO

Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart from DOCTOR WHO

Mr. Furious from MYSTERY MEN

The Spleen from MYSTERY MEN

Invisible Boy from MYSTERY MEN

King Kull from DC COMICS (_the King Kull that fought the Marvel Family_)

Colossus from the movie X-MEN

Mr. Incredible from THE INCREDIBLES

The Commander from SKY HIGH

Wizard from DC COMICS

Ookla the Mok from THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN

Mega Boy from ZOOM

Copperhead from DC COMICS

The Shoveller from MYSTERY MEN

General Traag from TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES

Krang from TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES

Lex Luthor from DC COMICS

Brainiac from DC COMICS

Cosmic King from DC COMICS

The Key from DC COMICS

Vandal Savage from DC COMICS

Professor X from the movie X-MEN

Martian Manhunter from DC COMICS

Hector Hammond from DC COMICS

Enik from LAND OF THE LOST (_tv show, not movie_)

Buffy from BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER

Death from DISCWORLD


	30. Chapter 30

A Tangled Web 8.30

By Charlie Nelson

Peeking over a pile of Garguax's broken plastic robots, Elastigirl surveyed the scene before her and did not like what she saw. The Borg were coming in force now. "This is not good."

"And now it's been made even worse with them fighting alongside us!"

Elastigirl let out a sigh as she unstretched her neck down to where her body was. "You're Willow, right?"

The young redhead reclining against one of the blue android parts grumbled an affirmative.

"Professor X made it quite clear, and the Doctors all agree with him. I know this is hard to accept, especially after all the fighting we were doing, but in order to beat the Borg, we have to stop fighting the villains the Master brought and join our forces with them. Or else we will all become part of the Borg. Or dead. Which choice do you prefer?"

Instead of an answer, Willow threw down the bloody rag she had been holding to her forehead. "Do you see what she did? That bitch, Evil-Lyn, turned the hairs of my eyebrows into needles and then caused them to burrow into my skull to try get at my brain and kill me! And she would have succeeded, too, if I hadn't been able to project them away! How the hell can I trust her to fight on my side and not expect her stab me in the back?"

A strong, calm, feminine voice intruded on their conversation. "If there is one thing I've learned in my journeys with Thundarr, it's that there comes a time in every fighter's life when they are surprised and perhaps even displeased with the ones with whom they are expected to fight side by side."

"That's an understatement!" came Willow's bitter reply.

Princess Ariel knelt down next to Willow in order to examine the wounds she bore. "Here, let me start the healing process. It will take away some of the pain and keep the blood from getting into your eyes."

The sorceress princess's right hand began to glow brightly as she brought it near Willow's forehead. "Thanks," Willow said. "I would have healed myself already but I can't seem to concentrate with all the pain and blood." She idly picked at the blood spots covering her blouse with disgust.

"Try to meditate," suggested the princess, "and leave the healing to me."

Elastigirl risked another peek over the wrecked androids. "Meditating right now might not be a good idea. They'll be here in just a few minutes."

A strange cry filled the air as an extremely large snowplow-like device made of green energy flew down from the sky and began pushing a mound of earth at the Borg drones at an incredible speed.

"Looks like we might have a few more minutes," she revised. She mentally went through the list of who was who that Professor X had put into all of their minds in order to keep people from accidently fighting the wrong foe. "It's Rygel, the little alien guy that found some kind of magic ring on the ground around here. He's using it to push them back. Quite effectively, I might add."

"Good, it will give us a chance to regroup," stated the princess. As the bleeding over Willow's left eye ceased, she turned her skills to the other unsightly wound where Willow's right eyebrow had been. "I fought Evil-Lyn earlier, you know. I'm interested in how you managed to incapacitate her."

Willow managed to chuckle despite the pain. "I used a spell I'd been creating for the past couple of weeks. I'd read about it in a work of fiction, and thought it might be useful when facing a magic-user of various types. Basically, the spell takes residence inside whoever it is cast upon, and when that person tries to use their magical abilities, the spell grabs onto the person's magical energy and manifests it into large slugs in the person's throat."

Princess Ariel glanced over to where, twenty feet away, Evil-Lyn was hunched over vomiting up another slug onto a large, growing pile of the creatures. "Very effective, I see. Remind me not to get you angry at me."

"Uh, pardon me for asking," Elastigirl said, "but if we are now fighting alongside the Master's team, shouldn't you take that spell or curse off of Evil-Lyn before all her magical abilities are gone?" Before Willow could respond, she added, "she can't help defeat the Borg if her magical powers are depleted."

"She's right, you know," agreed Princess Ariel.

Willlow reached up a tentative hand to inspect the healing of the wounds where her eyebrows had been. If her eyebrows didn't regrow back on their own, she was already making a mental list in her head for various spell books that might contain something she could use to regrow them or, if that didn't work, an illusion charm to hide the injury. Now that she could see clearly again, she watched as a dozen yards away Evil-Lyn choked horrendously as she gagged up another of the magically created slugs.

"Very well, but if she comes after me again, I'm taking the bitch down." With great reluctance, Willow made a dismissal wave in the wicked sorceress's direction.

Evil-Lyn looked around in confusion as the slug in her throat dissipated to nothingness as well as the large pile of the sickening creatures that she had already heaved up. With a shaking hand, she wiped away the unseemly tears that had been rolling down her face for some time. Shamefully, she glanced around, hoping that no one had seen her. Spotting Willow across the way, some of her viperous mentality returned, but she knew that she wasn't strong enough now to avenge herself. Not yet. She spat, clearing some of the gunk out of her mouth, and began to make plans that had a lot of malevolence and creativity.

"It's about time you got that under control," barked Skeletor. "Now stop that simpering. We have plans to make."

She was surprised when Tri-Klops came over and offered her his hand. Though he was very stoic, there were rare occasions when he showed a more gallant side to his personality. As he helped her up, she mentally worked on leaving the memories of her degrading experience behind so she could focus on the oncoming battle. She managed to not flinch when she noticed Beast-Man chuckling at her disheveled appearance. She decided that at another time she would stun him, have him immobilized and then when he awoke wax him all over until there wasn't a hair left on his body.

She was distracted by the miniature, blue Imp flying in frantic circles over Skeletor's head. "What is-" She gagged and spit more of the residue out of her mouth. "What is his problem?" she said, indicating the Imp.

"Hordak's dead," Skeletor said, with just a hint of glee. Nearby, Hordak's headless corpse was already starting to draw flies and a few small lizards. Evil-Lyn could tell that her evil liege was already mentally compiling Hordok's holdings with his own. The remaining robotic Horde Troopers on the field had already given their allegiance to Skeletor and were quickly building a barricade from various items to help defend him from the oncoming Borg drones. Meanwhile, Panthor was laying down nearby licking at the scorched wounds he'd received from the Human Torch.

"They are already going around the earthen barricade that flying rodent put up," stated Scorpia.

Skeletor reached his hand up, snagged Imp's leg and pulled the blue being down.

"Awwwk!" Imp's eyes were wide as saucers as he found himself face to face with Skeletor's skullish visage. "M-m-m-m-master?"

"I have a special task for you in the upcoming fighting."

"Fighting? I-I-I-I-I-"

"As a fighter you are useless to me. But I do have a task for you."

Imp gulped, as fear and dread threatened to overwhelm him. "M-m-m-master?"

Pulling the Imp close, he turned him so that he was looking upwards just as Rygel flew past them again. "You are to keep your eye on that creature. When the Borg finally blow him out of the sky, I want you to be the first one to his side. And you will take the emerald magic ring off his dead paw and bring it directly to me."

Imp blinked. "That's all?"

"For now. Just be sure to bring me the ring."

"I-I…I can do that."

"Good." Skeletor pushed him away and Imp stayed low but followed after Rygel as the former Hynerian ruler began raining boulders down on the Borg.

Shadow Weaver, one time aid to the late Hordak, slowly went to Skeletor's side, still unsure of her position with her new liege. "The emerald ring you seek is powerful indeed, my lord, but I sense a powerful curse attached to it as well. One that could bring madness onto the one who wears it."

If Skeletor could, he would have frowned. "This does not surprise me. Still, I will have this power magic ring. And then I will see about removing any curses connected to it."

Shadow Weaver bowed and stepped back from her new master, pleased that her advice had been accepted. Evil-Lyn scowled venomously at the rival sorceress. The seeds for another battle was now sown if she wanted to remain at Skeletor's side. Meanwhile, Scorpia and Entrapta placed bets as to which sorceress would survive.

Figures burst from the brush of the forest wall, Catra and Grizzlor almost fired on them when they recognized them as some of the Humans that were on their side. "Give some warning before you rush out like that," snarled Catra. "We almost shot you dead."

Zartan glared in response as his fellow Dreadnoks stumbled out after him. They might have never have escaped if the drones weren't so slow. "The Borg are forming a circle around us. We are all trapped."

"Hey!" the short red scaled reptilian humanoid known as Tung Lashor spoke up. "Just where did you take off to? Hey, I bet you were running off and leaving us, weren't you?"

The mercenary only snarled to the snake-man as an answer before turning his back on them in order to address his fellow mercenaries. "How's Zarana?"

Zander, Zarana and Zartan's brother, knelt over his sister. "I think she's just stunned."

One of the Dreadnoks, Buzzer, spat tobacco juice and then spoke. "Road Pig bought it. Torch and Gnawgahyde both were stunned. Couldn't get to them so the Borg have them by now."

Zartan clenched his fist in anger. "We should have left sooner!"

He glanced at his team of mercenaries who were all checking their weaponry while they caught their breath. Monkeywrench and Ripper were lighting up cigarettes in order to calm their nerves. Zanzibar was removing some rather nasty looking thorns from his legs that he had picked up in his run to escape. Thrasher just turned to take a piss, not caring who could see him. He knew they blamed him for this.

"Damn Cobra Commander for getting us involved in this fiasco!" ranted Zartan, looking around for the source of his anger, but did not see him anywhere.

Across the way, Giant Man, otherwise known as Ron Wilson, the former school bus driver for Sky High, woke when someone tapped him on the arm.

"Uh, sir? Sir? Could you please wake up, sir?"

With reluctance, Giant Man managed to open his swollen left eye enough to see a very little man with a very green complexion and a square shaped forehead, wearing black clothes, and standing in front of him holding a golf club. He immediately closed his eye again.

"Oh, please, sir."

With some reluctance, Giant Man opened his eyes. And then blinked. "Do you have bolts in your neck?"

Herman Munster, with golf club in hand, reached up self-consciously to one of the bolts. "Er, yes. But, ah, actually, I was wondering if you could move. You see, you're in the way of the next shot I have to make." He pointed down to his golf ball with his golf club and then pointed in the general direction of where he was intending to hit the ball.

Ron Wilson hurt all over. But before checking himself for any serious injuries, he sat up and took a quick look around, noting that the two warring factions were no longer fighting each other, but instead had separated to either side of him and were getting ready to repel the Borg together. He glanced around the villains side looking for his opponent, the Animal-Mineral-Vegetable Man, but finally concluded the villain had probably reverted back to his human form in order to rest before the fighting resumed.

"Ah, sir?"

Looking down, Giant Man could see that the little green who had been trying to get his attention, and realized that the 'little green man' wasn't so little after all. Concentrating, Giant Man managed to use his powers to reduce his size to his regular height. He put his hand to his head due to a dizzy spell that passed after a moment.

"Thank you, sir. That helps a lot."

He was about to stand, when he decided he should wait a few minutes for a better result. "Are you really… are you really trying to play a round of golf through here?"

"Oh my yes." Herman smiled happily. "My friend Gomez Addams has a golf course set up through here and we are playing through. We've told some of the others that we are trying to not interfere with the reenactment of the battle you are fighting, but sometimes they insist on us joining in."

"But how did you get here? I was told this place was a micro-habitat tucked into a micro-universe, whatever that means."

Herman shrugged. "I don't know anything about that, but Gomez and his family come here on vacation from time to time. They brought my family along this time, and I must say we are really enjoying it here. Makes me wish I could buy a time share in a condo here."

Ron Wilson reached back and gingerly touched the back of his head. Bringing his head back, he could see blood on his fingers. "I must have a concussion."

"A concussion?" A look of concern crossed Herman's face. Glancing around, he spotted someone. "Grandpa! Grandpa! Come over here!"

A short, pasty man wearing an old fashion evening tuxedo walked over with a tall, beautiful woman on his arm. "What is it, Herman? Circe and I are trying to become more acquainted."

"Sorry, Grandpa," apologized Herman. "But this man might have a concussion."

"So?"

"So can't you look at him and see if there is anything you can do?"

"Alright! Alright!" He turned to his female companion. "I'll be just a minute, my dear."

As if in a daze, the two millennia old Greek sorceress, who was often a foe of Wonder Woman, nodded.

Grandpa stepped behind Ron and looked at the injury. Using one of his fingers, he touched the bloody wound and then brought it to his nose and sniffed. He nodded noncommittally, and then brought the finger to his mouth and sucked on it. "O-Negative, about 37 years of age," he declared. "Of Norwegian descent. And some type of toxic waste residue which is probably what gave you those growing powers. I don't think you have to worry about a concussion though. Your cholesterol is rather high, but a simple change of diet should fix that."

"But I'm seeing things." He let out a deep sigh and turned back to Herman, who somehow seemed the more compassionate of the two. "To me you look like Frankenstein's monster and him, he looks like Dracula gone to seed."

"What do you mean 'going to seed'?" snapped Grandpa Munster a.k.a. 'Sam' Dracula, baring his fangs. "I may not be as spry in my unlife as I used to be, but I am still a force to be reckoned with!"

"Um, Grandpa," Herman pulled his father-in-law back a few feet before things turned violent. Whispering, he said, "I think it's just the concussion talking."

"Herman, I just told you he doesn't have a concussion!"

"Well, then, maybe he was just knocked silly then."

"Hrrrhh. Maybe."

"Besides, you don't want your new lady friend to see you starting a fight with an injured man, do you?"

'Grandpa' Munster, as some called him, glanced back at his latest conquest. Taking control of her will had been a feat in itself. Even now he could sense the mythical Grecian enchantress untangling the mental hold he had over her. He considered turning her completely into a vampire, but he could tell that her will would be too strong to make her into one of his enthralled vampire brides like he used to have centuries ago. Making her into a vampiress would have actually made her more powerful than he was. No, the only chance he had of keeping her would be to give her her freedom. Then, if she chose to, they could start building on a solid relationship, or end up destroying each other.

"You know what, Herman? I don't think Circe and I are going to make it as a couple."

"But Grandpa, shouldn't you are least-"

"Herman, at my age, you have to know when to hold them, and know when to fold them and walk away." He held up a hand to shush his son-in-law. Then he walked up to Circe and gave her a kiss. "Circe, my dear, you are the woman of my dreams, but I'm afraid you and I aren't going to work out. So I want you to forget about me and go over to your friends over there. I think soon they are going to need you as much as you need them." His eyes gave her the once over again, causing him to already regret his decision. "Go now before I reconsider."

Circe turned and began a slow trek over to where Minister Blizzard and Baron Blitzkrieg were arguing on what kind of tactics to use against the Borg.

Herman put his hand on his wife's father's shoulder. "Grandpa, that was a very selfless act. It was very mature of you to consider all the ramifications of your relationship before investing too much into it."

"I know what you mean, Herman," he agreed. "She would have been the death of me for sure."

Herman looked confused but chose not to ask him to explain. Instead, he thought he'd check up on the giant that had shrunk down to his size. But seeing two women in white uniforms of some sort attending to him, Herman decided to line up and take his shot before the fighting resumed. He had lost track of Gomez and his butler Lurch, but he had a good idea where the next golf hole was.

Principal Powers and Jetstream helped the inexperienced hero onto his feet. "Why are you all spinning around?" he asked, as he worked on keeping his knees from buckling.

Jetstream gave Principal Powers a look of concern. The principal of the superhero academy Sky High took out a small pen light and checked his pupils. "Doesn't appear to have a concussion," she concluded. "Just knocked silly. He will be himself again in a moment."

"Are you sure?" asked the other super heroine.

Instead of taking the question as an insult, she put on a soft smile instead. "I see about two to three concussions a day at Sky High. By now I'm pretty much an expert on them."

Giant Man shook his head again. "What's going on?"

"Do you remember where we are?" asked Principal Powers.

"Uh, not exactly but I think we got here in some type of phone booth."

"That's right," nodded Principal Powers. "The Doctor brought us here in his TARDIS which looks like an older model phone booth on the outside."

"And you, you're Jetstream. And you are married to…the… The Captain."

"The Commander," Jetstream corrected.

"The Commander, right." He tried to remember something else. "You have a son. Will I think his name is. And I used to drive him to Sky High on a school bus, right?" to which Jetstream nodded.

"His head is clearing," Principal Powers said. "He should be fine in a minute."

"The fighting's over?" he asked the two women as he looked around.

"Not exactly," began Principal Powers. "We put a hold on the hostilities due to the fact we need each other to repel the oncoming Borg drones."

In annoyance, Giant Man inspected the burn welts on his legs that he had received from Garguax's red, heat radiating plastic androids. "How can we-"

"They will be fighting the Borg on this side of the battlefield while those on our side face the Borg on this side."

Giant Man nodded. After fighting so desperately against the villains, he wasn't ready to fight side-by-side with them. "Ok, where do you want me to take my place in the trenches?"

"You aren't going to fight here."

He blinked. "I thought you said I'd be alright in a minute."

"You misunderstand," she said. "You're powers make it difficult for allies to fight in close quarters around you."

"…am I being kicked off the team?"

"No, you are just being redirected elsewhere." She pointed into the horizon.

He gapped as he watched a giant ape grapple with a large Borg drone made from the villainess Giganta and Mr. Atom. His previous opponent, the Animal-Mineral-Vegetable Man, was just pulling himself out of a small crater, his head shaped like a gila monster, the lower part of his body flowed like mercury, and arms of corded vines. Three of the Voltron ships circled around looking for openings to fire upon the giant drone as well as firing on smaller drones on the ground.

"Don't worry," Jetstream said. "I'm going with you. We have to make sure that thing is stopped, because if it makes it here, then the Borg win everything."

Giant Man sighed. "Will someone please remind me why I ever wanted to be a superhero in the first place?"

**AUTHOR's NOTES**

_I wanted to make this longer but if I did I'd probably never have it ready. So here is the latest chapter of one of the biggest and longest crossover stories on the Internet. Hope you enjoy it._

_The slug spell came from Willow having read the Harry Potter books._

**List of people mentioned in this chapter and where they originated.**

**Garguax** – A DC Comics villain who fought against the Doom Patrol

**Elastigirl** – from the movie The Incredibles

**Borg** – if you don't know who the Borg are by know I'm going to have to ask you to start reading from the beginning

**Professor X** – from Marvel Comic's X-Men – specifically the movie version

**Willow** – from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

**The Doctors** – from Doctor Who of course

**The Master** – the most infamous of the Doctor Who villains

**Evil-Lyn** – from He-Man & the Masters of the Universe

**Thundarr** – a barbarian from a post-apocalyptic America – from the show Thundarr the Barbarian – I loved the 80's!

**Princess Ariel** – also from the show Thundarr the Barbarian

**Rygel** – from Farscape

**Skeletor** – from He-Man & the Masters of the Universe

**Tri-Klops** – from He-Man & the Masters of the Universe

**Beast Man** – from He-Man & the Masters of the Universe

**Imp** – from She-Ra: Princess of Power

**Hordak** – leader of the Horde and sometimes rival of Skeletor – he was beheaded by one of the Predators in an earlier chapter – originally from the TV show She-Ra: Princess of Power

**Horde Troopers** – robot or possible cyborg soldiers of Hordak

**Panthor** – Panther-like companion and sometimes steed of Skeletor

**Human Torch** – from Marvel Comics – specifically the Fantastic Four movies

**Scorpia** – part of Hordak's Horde – from She-Ra: Princess of Power

**Shadow Weaver** – part of Hordak's Horde – from She-Ra: Princess of Power

**Entrapta** – part of Hordak's Horde – from She-Ra: Princess of Power

**Catra **– part of Hordak's Horde – from She-Ra: Princess of Power

**Grizzlor** – part of Hordak's Horde – from She-Ra: Princess of Power

**Zartan** – leads the group of mercenaries known as the Dreadnoks – from G.I. Joe

**Tung Lashor** – part of Hordak's Horde – from She-Ra: Princess of Power

**Zarana** – a member of the Dreadnoks – from G.I. Joe

**Zander** – a member of the Dreadnoks – from G.I. Joe

**Buzzer** – a member of the Dreadnoks – from G.I. Joe

**Road Pig** – a member of the Dreadnoks – from G.I. Joe

**Torch** – a member of the Dreadnoks – from G.I. Joe

**Gnawgahyde** – a member of the Dreadnoks – from G.I. Joe

**Monkeywrench** – a member of the Dreadnoks – from G.I. Joe

**Ripper** – a member of the Dreadnoks – from G.I. Joe

**Zanzibar** – a member of the Dreadnoks – from G.I. Joe

**Thrasher** - a member of the Dreadnoks – from G.I. Joe

**Cobra Commander** – enemy of G.I. Joe - – from G.I. Joe

**Giant Man / Ron Wilson** – the former bus driver for the Sky High school – later he fell into a vat of toxic waste material and gained the power to become a giant – from the movie Sky High

**Herman Munster** – from the TV show The Munsters

**Animal-Mineral-Vegetable Man** – from DC Comics – for of the Doom Patrol

**Gomez Addams **– from the Addams Family – the TV version

**Grandpa Munster / 'Sam' Dracula** – from the TV show The Munsters

**Circe** – from DC Comics – one of Wonder Woman's reoccurring foes

**Wonder Woman** – from DC Comic – she's just being mentioned here. I think we have more than enough characters to work with at this point

**Minister Blizzard** – from DC Comics – one of Wonder Woman's foes

**Baron Blitzkrieg** – from DC Comics – who was also originally a foe of Wonder Woman.

**Principal Powers** – the principal for Sky High, the school for super powered teens – from the movie Sky High

**Jetstream** – from the movie Sky High

**The Commander** – from the movie Sky High

**Will Strong** – from the movie Sky High

**King Kong** – like King Kong needs any introduction

**Giganta** – from DC Comics - another foe of Wonder Woman's (_wow! I hadn't even planned for that to be a theme_)

**Mr. Atom** – a rather large atomic powered robot that fought against Captain Marvel - from DC Comics

**Voltron** – from the cartoon Voltron


	31. Chapter 31

**A TANGLED WEB: Part 8 Chapter 31**

**ACT 1**

Rick Marshall rushed through the lush underbrush of the jungle. His mind kept telling him to watch for predators but his heart hurried him to be with his son and daughter.

It had been over two years since he had last been in this 'Land of the Lost' as Holly had called it. Two very long years. It had been while he was searching in one of the mysterious pylons for a way back to Earth, he had accidentally activated a portal that literally pulled him through to exactly where he wanted to go. But neither Holly or Will had been with him.

Unable to find a way back on his own, he began searching libraries, ancient scrolls, shamans, witch doctors, fortune tellers; anyone who could possibly come up with a feasible way back to his kids, no matter how ludicrous.

Finally, unable to put off other matters any longer, he returned to Denver to deal with his brother's estate. Guilt had weighed heavily on Rick when he had learned that his brother Jack had disappeared in the mountains while searching him and his children. The remorse had affected him so bad that he had repeatedly delayed dealing with Rick's estate, and since Rick was the only beneficiary, there had been no one else to deal with it.

He had thanked Mr. Wilson, one of Jack's neighbors, for maintaining Jack's yard and Mrs. Wilson who provided him with some delicious fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. Both insisted it was the least they could do, under the circumstances. Mrs. Wilson was even able to provide him with the name of a local reputable reality dealer since he was planning to sell the place. As they partook of the cookies, they had told him of Jack's many incursions into the mountains for the two years Rick and his kids had been missing, always looking for some sign of them. Rick finally couldn't take anymore of the rising guilt, and pardoned himself before heading out for a walk.

Later, when walking back from the supermarket, he was passing the park when he saw a familiar object. He threw down his groceries and broke out into a run. Four small children were playing in the entryway of a pylon! And a pylon was connected to the Land of the Lost!

"Hold it! Stop!" he shouted. The kids froze before entering the interior of the pylon. The next thing the kids knew, he was pulling them out of the pylon. He shuddered to think of what would have happened to the kids if they had been suddenly transported to a land filled with dinosaurs.

"Hey!" complained a blond-haired boy in red overhauls. "This is our magic fort! It appeared out of nowhere just for us!"

"Sorry, kids. But you really shouldn't be playing in here," he answered.

"I told you so, Dennis," said a red-haired girl with glasses while giving the blond boy an accusing glare.

The dark haired girl jumped out by herself. Not knowing if the pylon was on a timer, Rick hurriedly lifted the second boy, who was rather quite, and put him down before entering the pylon himself. "Okay, kids. You go on and find yourself another fort. Just make sure it's a safe one."

"Oh, my doll!" said the redhead.

Glancing down, Rick picked up a small doll from the floor and was about to hand it to her when the door to the pylon suddenly materialized in place.

He looked down at the doll with a smile on his face. "Well, I guess you are coming with me." Not knowing what else to do with the doll he put it down next to the flashing pedestal.

Within moments, Rick found himself in the familiar primitive surroundings. And yet he soon found that he wasn't alone. He'd come across dozens on new arrivals, but none could tell him where his son or daughter were.

Then a boy with the ability to move at super-speeds had told them of a great battle being waged in a far valley. With a sickening lump in his throat, Rick knew that was where he'd find his two children. While running into the two Pakuni, Ta and Sa, had given him high hopes, neither of the two cowardly furballs could tell him where Cha-Ka was, or help him find Will and Holly.

Turning a corner near a bamboo hedge, he almost run into a man running in his direction. Rick managed to stay on his feet, but the other man was not so fortunate. He reached down to help the other man up and was mildly taken aback at what the other man was wearing. He wore a reddish robe and had a long pointy hat that spelled W-I-Z-Z-A-R-D and had a long wispy white beard.

"Pardon me," said the man.

"That's, uh, quite an outfit you have on," Rick said. "Especially the hat."

"Yes, well, as a wizard it is quite customary to have a pointy hat. Sort of a status thing. As well as letting people know that they shouldn't be rude to someone wearing such a hat unless they want to attend their next family reunion as a frog."

Thinking that the older man might be going senile, Rick decided not to challenge the man's sense of reality. Instead he said, "Hi, I'm Rick Marshall."

"Ah, yes, the customary exchanging of names." He looked at Rick's outstretched hand for a moment before deciding to give into social convenience and shake it. "I'm Rincewind."

Rick managed a smile. "Now, Rincewind, can you tell me what's going on over there?" He pointed toward the general direction from which the wizard had just come.

"That way?" responded the wizard meekly. "Oh, trust me, you don't want to go that way. There's some unusual people playing a game they call golf and a lot of … rather loud spectators."

A load roar came from above. Both men watched as a sleek looking dragon flew overhead and firing beams of light from it's eyes and tail toward the distant battle that was out of view. Returning fire came from the general direction Rick had just pointed, too.

Rincewind gave Rick a sheepish look. "Did I mention that the spectators seemed rather hostile?"

"Did you see any kids there?" he asked blatantly, caring for little else at this time. "A boy and a girl. In their upper teens. The girl is blond and the boy has dark hair like mine."

Rincewind considered braking into a run. The dark haired man had the determined look in his eyes that boded trouble. "Well, I can tell you that there were a few young people there that fit that description. That being the case I'll just let you get on with-"

Rick's hand clamped onto Rincewind's wrist.

"I need you to take me there. The fastest, safest route you can." Rick squeezed the other man's wrist.

The frightened wizard thought about saying the usual '_Are you crazy_?' but didn't think it would be very well received. Instead, smiled nervously, and said, "I'd rather not, if you don't mind?"

A low stampeding sound came from the woods drawing both of their attention. Pushing it's way through some thick leaves, a large wooden trunk appeared.

Rick's eyes widened in surprise. "It's on legs!" In fact there was a large wooden chest struggling to extract itself from the vines had hundreds of small legs and was trying to come their way.

"Oh, yes, that's my Luggage." Rincewind tried to sound casual, as if the sentient pearwood Luggage had been something that he had created with his wizard abilities, when nothing was farther from the case. He had actually been given the Luggage by a tourist he had been enforced to accompany. Ever since the Luggage had followed him around like a homicidal bodyguard, attacking anything that even looked at the wizard wrong. "I should tell you it's very protective of me."

Rick let go of Rincewind's arm but didn't step away from the strange man.

They watched with interest as the Luggage managed to free the last of it's legs from vines and start to trot over. Rick gaped in wonder, bending down on one knee, letting the Luggage come to him like he would a dog.

"You-you probably shouldn't do that," Rincewind exclaimed with more than a little concern. "He doesn't take to people handling him very well."

Rick ran his hand over the top cover of the Luggage, trying to determine if the warmth he felt was from the sun or body heat. "It's…it's alive!" He reached down to examine the many feet that it had. Finding one that still had twine wrapped around it, he carefully took it off that tossed aside. He was surprised when the lid open a little and a large carpet-made tongue rolled out and seemed to lick his face.

"And it seems to like you." Rincewind was somewhat perplexed at the sight of his Luggage showing a stranger so much affection.

Rick rubbed lightly at the bottom edge of the Luggage, which caused it to start tapping the ground with several of it's feet in pleasure.

"Wow! This is-"

He was abruptly interrupted when three long snake-like creatures burst up from the ground underneath the Luggage. Rick jumped back, knocking Rincewind away, as the three creatures wrapped themselves effectively around the Luggage before biting down in order to maintain their grip.

"Wha-what is it?" asked the wizard.

"I don't know," Rick answered.

The Luggage pulled to be free while the three snakes worked together to try pull it down into the ground from which they came. From all the struggling the ground beneath them had begun to tremble and show some cracks.

"I've never seen snakes with horns before," Rick managed to say, as he worked at trying to watch the struggle before him while he searched with haste through the brush for something he could use as a weapon. Finding as old tree branch, he went over and swung it like a baseball bat and struck one of the strange-looking serpents in the head, knocking it to the ground.

The ground shook even more, and even seemed to roar out in pain. Rick fell back as something large burst forth from the ground lifting the Luggage up with it. It resembled a massive grub with a very large black beak that opened in four sections instead of two. The three long snakes turned out to actually be tentacle-like tongues which now drew the living baggage kicking into the creature's gaping maw.

"What the hell is that?" Rick shouted, more out of fear than anything else

"It looks like some creature that must have escaped from the Dungeon Dimension," answered Rincewind from where he sat up in a tall tree. How Rincewind had gotten up in the tree so quickly was not something Rick could speculate at the moment but he marveled at the feat just the same. "It'll wish it was back there once the Luggage has finished with it," stated the wizard, matter-of-factly.

With that said the graboid hauled the Luggage underground with it – both disappearing from sight.

Rick let out a sigh. "We should get out of here. I'm sorry about your Luggage. I liked it."

"Oh, it'll be back," he answered from the relative safety of his tree perch. "It always comes back to me. Whether I fall off the end of the world, travel to other dimensions, or other time periods, the Luggage will come to me. Even if trolls, dwarves or even dragons come between us; it will make a path to me. You see it was made from a very magically infused wood source, which also makes it pretty near unstoppable as well as mostly invulnerable."

Sounds began to erupt from underground again: roars of anger, agitation, and pain. The land shook and some trees were being knocked around as something large moved around underground.

Rincewind's tree was also uprooted and fell. Rick hurried but pulled the wizard from it unharmed. For his part, the wizard groaned some but began checking his hat for any damages. "Unfortunately, I'm not nearly as undamageable."

"So your Luggage is going to be okay?"

"Yes, fine. If anything, you can pity the poor beast that pulled it down there with it."

They paused to listen to some more roars that were quickly turning to cries of pain from the ground beneath them.

"And your Luggage can find you wherever you go?"

The wizard sighed. "Yes, it has tracked me through- Hey, what are you doing?"

With a tight grip on the wizard's arm, he began to lead him to another battle further away and above ground. "I'm sorry, Rincewind, but I have to find my children. This place is proving to be way more dangerous than the last time I was here, so I need you to guide me."

Rick dragged the protesting wizard away onto the path that led through the jungle. It was some time later that the ground finally became still. And then a little while after that, the ground began to shift as a rectangle shape emerged, shaking the dirt from it's lid. A portion of the tendril-like tongue stuck out of it's lid which it quickly swallowed. Then the Luggage began to turn left and right as if searching for something. Finally, it took off on it's many little feet through the trees in search of it's elusive owner.

**ACT 2**

**Character Roll Call:**

Boba Fett – from STAR WARS

Admiral McCoy – from STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES

Ambassador Spock – from STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES

Captain Janeway – from STAR TREK: VOYAGER

Builder / The Other – from LAND OF THE LOST and DOCTOR WHO

Alf / Gordon Shumway – from ALF

Cha-Ka – from LAND OF THE LOST

Will Robinson – from LOST IN SPACE

Dr. Smith – from LOST IN SPACE

Robot – from LOST IN SPACE

Dave Lister – from RED DWARF

Cat – from RED DWARF

Arnold Rimmer – from RED DWARF

Kryten – from RED DWARF

No. 6 / John Drake – from THE PRISONER and SECRET AGENT

Max Guevera – from DARK ANGEL

Static flashed across the bounty hunter's visor screen for a moment obscuring his view. He froze in place, making sure that the fault didn't reoccur in less than a minute. The damage he'd taken from his battle with the one that called himself Batman and the partial blow from the tree trunk the giant beast had thrown at him, had taken it's toll on his Mandalorian armor. But with the Starfleet crew broken into separate groups, now was his best chance for ending this quickly; these people had proven themselves too resourceful and dangerous for him to allow them a chance to regather themselves.

With a blaster in hand, Boba Fett edged slowly toward the cave that the two men, Spock and McCoy, had moved their injured female team member. Not wanting to risk getting any closer, with his other hand he tossed a special type of grenade he had manufactured that was part multiple flares and part smoke grenade. The results were almost instantaneous. A serious of bright flashes followed by a large cloud of smoke came from the cave along with a series of loud swearing mixed with coughing. Both men predictably came out of their shelter carrying the unconscious body of Janeway.

"Put her down," Fett barked.

"Let us get her a few feet further from the smoke," spat Bones.

"Smoke rises. She can breathe where she is. Put her down."

"I think we should do as he advices, admiral," stated McCoy's Vulcan companion.

"Damn it, Spock! I told you to call me 'Bones'! Is that really too much to ask?"

Fett planted a shot from his blaster near Bone's feet. "Put her down. Now."

Begrudgeningly, Dr. McCoy help lower Janeway onto the ground and stepped back. "So are you going to just kill us in cold blood now?"

"Only if you make it necessary." He gestured with his blaster, and the two men tossed their weapons into the nearby brush. Fett froze for a moment while the visual screen in his visor became static. For almost ten seconds he could see nothing, but he held still in order to not let his captives know of his dilemma. Due to the damage he sustained to his helmet he couldn't open the visors so that he could see with his own eyes, which left him blind. He considered removing his helmet when the screen cleared. McCoy and Spock were still where he last saw them quietly speculating his silence.

A group of people hurried through the brush and into their clearing. Boba Fett immediately turned and trained his weapon on the newcomers.

"Move it, people. C'mon, the Other and Cha-Ka couldn't have gotten too much of a head start on us." The first man slowed down as he suddenly realized the deadly situation he had just led the others behind him into. "Smeg!" Dave Lister was about to call out an alarm when Rimmer bumped into him from behind, knocking them both to the ground

As each member of the group hurried into the clearing, they all grasped what had happened too late to do anything about it.

"Toss down the hardware." Fett's opposing form led to no resistance as Lister, Cat, Kryten and Rimmer dropped their bazookoids. "Anything else?"

"The rest of us don't have any weapons," spoke up a short, orange furred alien with a large snout. "Gordon Shumway's the name. And I can see by your armor that you are someone who takes themselves very seriously, so let me just get to the crux of the problem. You don't want us intruding on your business, and we don't want to be here. So why not solve both problems by just-"

Fett's answer was quick and to the point. "You can either be silent or you can be dead. Which is it?"

Gordon, also known as Alf, shut his mouth, but it immediately began to quiver as if trying to open up on it's own. Max Guevera, the only female of the group, lowered one hand and clamped it hard over the Melmacian snout.

She gave the bounty hunter a weak smile. "He can't help himself; his mouth just won't stop."

Fett said nothing as he waited for the screen inside his helmet to give him sight and sound again. Once he could see again, he noted Max's hand holding Alf's mouth shut but chose to ignore it. "I want you all to lay down on the ground face-first with your hands over your heads." He looked over at Spock and McCoy and made a motion with his blaster. "You, too. Go over and join them on the ground."

Leaving Janeway's prone body on the ground, Spock led a sputtering McCoy over to where the others were already beginning to find their places on the earthen floor.

"Whose droid is that?" asked the bounty hunter.

"Do you mean the robot?" asked Will Robbinson, raising his head somewhat from the ground.

"Is he yours?"

"More of less, I guess. But Mr. Smith has-"

"Don't bring me into this, Will!" hissed the older man laying to the right of the boy. Glancing up at the armored bounty hunter, Zacheriah Smith gave a sheepish grin. "It doesn't really listen to me; but the boy on the other hand, it'll do anything the boy asks of it."

"You utter smeghead," responded Dave Lister, who laid on the other side of Dr. Smith. "How could you just sell out the boy like that?"

An answer came from the robot in question. "Dr. Smith is an invertebrate by nature."

"A what?" asked Lister.

"He means he has no spine, sir," responded Kryten, "and if I might further conjecture, he has no testicles either."

Dr. Smith was outraged. "How dare you-"

"Enough with the talking," snapped Fett. "Tell it to power down. And that one," he pointed to Kryten on the ground, "is it another droid?"

"Sir, I am a Series 4000 mechanoid, and I can assure you that my programming makes it impossible for me to lie or hurt a human. I am not a threat."

"I've heard that one before. Power down now or I'll do it my way."

Boba Fett was pointing his blaster at the mechanoid's head when he noticed a movement from off to the side. Jumping back, he just missed being struck by Janeway's phaser. He was about to return fire when he stepped in something and slipped. His shot went wild striking only trees.

The Jupiter 2 robot rolled forward on it's treads before emitting a burst of electrical energy from it's arms at the armored foe.

Although normaly insulated, the damage Fett's armor had sustained was no longer able to shield him from such an attack. The electricity tore it's way through the bounty hunter's body, coming up his left leg and then exiting out the other leg. The screen in Fett's helmet went dead.

Once Fett was down on the ground unconscious and the robot had stopped it's electrical assault, John Drake, a former British secret agent, hurried forward and took the blaster out of Fett's unresisting hand. "Someone want to give me a hand?"

"Sure," Max said. "How about Alf and I get some vines so we can tie this man-in-a-can up?"

Alf shook his head in disbelief. "First she won't let me talk and now she's giving me orders." He looked up at her. "Did I miss something? Did we become married somehow and I missed it?"

Max chuckled and ruffled the hairs on the top of his head. "Tell you what, let's grab some extra vines to save for our honeymoon."

Alf's mouth fell open as she walked off toward the side of the clearing where some vines were within easy reach. "Somebody tell me she's kidding."

The Cat snarled in annoyance. "She's just trying to get me jealous. There's no way she could fall for an orange hairpiece like you."

"Oh yeah? What have you got that I don't?"

The Cat twirled in a circle. "My stylish clothes for one thing. Man, you don't even have any clothes at all."

"Ha!" Alf became very amused. "You call those gaudy things you're wearing stylish? You must have been raised by blind people!"

"My grandfather may have been blind, but not my mother; she had me wearing all the up and coming styles."

Alf snorted in merriment. "Your mother dressed you? Ha! Ha!"

A confused look crossed the Cat's face. "She only dressed me until I was sixteen. That's the age where all cats start to fend for their clothing styles themselves."

By now Alf was rolling on the ground laughing. The Cat just snorted in disgust and went to go help Max.

Admiral McCoy ignored all the commotion going on around them while he hurried over to be with his patient. "You did good, Kathryn."

Janeway wasn't so easily able to accept that compliment. "I 'issed 'im, Ad'er'al," she said, through her teeth, as her jaws had been wired shut due to her broken jawbones. She set down the phaser that she had been holding in one shaky hand down on the ground next to her.

"But you still distracted him long enough for that robot to fire an electronic discharge and end this rather deadly situation."

"'ee could 'ave kilt us all."

"Kathryn, that's not what happened so let it go. I revived you from a deep sleep, gambling against the odds that he would believe you were still out cold and that you'd be able to make such a shot in your condition. And if you want to know the odds of that actually working, well, you can just ask Spock. He can tell you the answer, but you'll just end up shaking your head in bewilderment. Besides, as a Starfleet captain, you know we have to push in on the walls of what is not likely to happen until we make it happen."

"Uggh!" came a cry from John Drake.

The others hurried over to see what was the matter.

"Ewww!" Will Robbinson pinched his nose tight. "What is that smell?"

"It's smells almost as bad as Lister's socks," Rimmer added.

"Hey!" Lister looked up from where he'd been turning Kryten back on. "Watch it, Rimmer, or I'll turn off your portable light bee and give it another tour of my intestinal canals." Rimmer blanched at the threat and became quiet.

Spock brought out his tricorder. "The odor is coming from an organic substance that has been partial cooked onto the bounty hunter's boots. It appears to be …" Spock lowered the tricorder and turned to look at McCoy, who was still running his tricorder over Captain Janeway. "Admi - Bones, I believe I requested that you perform your bodily functions further away from the cave."

Rimmer looked bewildered. "Do you mean to say that our attacker with the armor fetish… that he…"

"That he really stuck his foot in it," concluded Lister with a merry chortle.

McCoy shrugged, but wore a broad smile. "What can I say? To paraphrase an old friend, 'I boldly went where no one has gone before'."

As they began to relax, each group began to exchange stories of how they had come to this strange land and what they were on their way to try accomplishing.

"So the Builder kid, who calls himself the Other, do you really believe he built this place?" asked McCoy.

"Cha-Ka seemed to think so," commented Max.

"Cha-Ka?"

"He's a native. He's kind of like a mini-sasquatch. Only cuter."

"Where is he now?" asked McCoy, hoping to get a scan of Cha-Ka with his tricorder.

"Don't know for sure. We were all heading this way when some dinosaurs chasing a wooly mammoth, a saber-toothed tiger, and a large sloth-like creature crossed our path, separating us. The Other and Cha-Ka went on ahead. We went to follow as soon as it was safe, but I guess they took a different trail."

"Ye-ouch!" came a cry from where the now-tied up form of Boba Fett still laid.

"What happened?" asked McCoy.

John Drake held up a slightly bleeding finger. "I was just trying to remove the guy's helmet when something on … on... it stabbed … m-m-me." As the former spy keeled over onto the ground, everyone jumped up to see what was the matter.

"That was a damn fool thing to do!" muttered McCoy, as he scanned the barely breathing man.

Spock scanned Fett's helmet in order to determine the means of the poison. "His helmet appears to have been booby-trapped."

"You think!" came McCoy's sarcastic response.

"What do you want us to do?" asked Lister.

"Just give us some room!" snapped McCoy, as he injected something into Drake's neck. "Spock, have you ever seen anything like this?"

The Vulcan ambassador had just finished scanning the small poisoned needle located near one of the snaps that would remove Fett's helmet. "It appears to be an incapacitating agent; not likely to be lethal."

"Hmm." Bones checked the readings on his medical tricorder. "I guess our tin can bounty hunter wanted to have another chance at collect his prey in case they ever got the upper hand over him."

"Danger! Danger, Will Robbinson!" called out the robot from the Jupiter-2.

Will gave the robot a curious look. "Robot, they just said that the poison wasn't lethal."

"That is not the danger to which I was referring. Look there." The robot stretched out one of its arm in order to point in the direction where some of the trees had been pushed aside by some gigantic entity. "Cybernetic entities are approaching."

Spock turned and did a quick scan with his tricorder of the direction that the robot had pointed. "Bones, five Borg drones are approaching."

"The Borg?" asked Dr. Smith, apprehensive that he wasn't going to like the answer.

McCoy responded, "Cyborg beings that want to turn everyone else into cyborgs similar to them as well as force their minds to join in a collective consciousness where after their every action will be controlled by the Borg Queen."

Alf shook his head. "That does not sound like a political party I'd want to join."

"They definitely wouldn't make it into Silicone Heaven with that type of behavior," added Kryten.

"Oh, no way in hell, man!" The Cat hissed his dislike as the Borg drones – four Sleestak and one Human – began to come into the far end of the clearing. "There is no way in hell I am every going to wear anything like that." He snapped up his bazookoid off the ground and took aim.

"Uh, Cat," began Lister. But he was too late. The Cat had fired.

**NOTES:**

_Yes I tied Dennis the Menace into my already very full crossover. I had considered Calvin and Hobbes but Dennis seemed to fit better, considering the fact that the Land of the Lost was in the 70's._

_For those who saw my other crossover tie in, I confirm that there was a little nod to the Ice Age movies. If you didn't notice it, then go back and read it again._

_You may remember the graboid from earlier in chapter 9. It was the sole remaining surviving graboid that had attacked the Dungeons and Dragons kids. I had planned to have it show up and start attacking people during the massive battle scene, but I figure there is enough chaos going on around there. Anyway, I wanted to tie up as many loose ends as I can as I start to bring this story to it's end, and this was just one of the loose strings. Besides, the thought of a Graboid vs Luggage battle sounded fun to me._


	32. Chapter 32

**Chapter 32**

The fighting against the Borg had begun in earnest once again. This time the Master's army of villains and the heroes brought by the Doctors would fight on the same side. Or at least on as much of the same side as they could.

After fighting each other with such ferocity, neither side was at ease being in such close proximity with each other. Tempers were high and wounds were fresh. In order to remove that liability as much as possible, Professor X, Enik, Mr. Medulla, Brainwave, Dr. Psycho and Hector Hammond had used their telepathic abilities to placed the heroes on one side and the villains on the other to take away potential temptation of 'friendly' fire accidents. In between them was the mystically warded circle that had been created by Wotan in which the drones inside said circle were cut off from communication with the Borg Collective. Just behind them was a steep hill that they didn't have to protect as much since most of the drones could not handle that type of terrain.

With an alliance in place, both sides released any prisoners they had captured. Professor X allowed Teth-Adam to awaken and say the magic word "Shazam" turning him into the powerhouse Black Adam. The Wizard turned the stone statue of the Shoveller back to living form and released Ookla the Mok from his hypnotic control. The pseudo-magician Abra Kadabra turned the cardboard cutout of the Parasite back into his former self (for which he profusely apologized for accidently doing so in the first place). The Ghostbusters freed the Gentleman Ghost from one of their ghost traps. Owlman reluctantly freed Carl the Gnome after giving him a promising threat for the next time they met. Unwinding some of the many large vines under her control, Thorn freed the bleeding, unconscious form of Layla to Will Stronghold, who looked like he wanted to tear the villainess apart. And while freeing captives did raise the two teams collective strength, feelings of good will towards each other was certainly absent.

In order to make some protective barriers to shield themselves from the advancing drones, the heroes had taken to moving large boulders around their side. Princess Ariel and Willow Rosenberg were using their magical abilities to form a spell that would reinforce the rock was to make it resilient to the Borg energy weapons. The simian stone ape Igoo of the Herculoids dug down into the ground, unearthing large rocks which he tossed up to the super strong little girl code-named Princess. She, in turn, tossed the massive rocks over to the organic-steel mutant Colossus, who stacked each boulder in place. Nearby, the Commander was throwing truck-sized rocks to his son, Will Stronghold, a cadet at the superhero academy, Sky High. Ben Grimm, also known as the Thing of the Fantastic Four, caught rocks and placed them in the makeshift wall from Mr. Incredible and Mr. Hyde, of the League of Extra-Ordinary Gentlemen. In order to give the wall-builders some protection, Thor called down lightning to strike at the drones, leaving small mounds of sand-fused glass and black ash. Meanwhile the villains had taken a different approach. While the drones approaching their side where battling a large tentacled eldritch demon summoned by the magician Felix Faust as well as being blown back by Bizarro's super fire breath, two of the sound-based villains, the Fiddler and Sonar put up a sonic barrier so that the cold-based villains could erect a more physical barrier. Captain Cold, Mr. Freeze, the Icicle and Minister Blizzard joined together to focus their cold energies into the very ground between them and form a mini-glacier. Aiding them were Matter Master and Major Disaster, causing the mini-glacier to push up the ground as it slowly grew toward the oncoming drones.

Meanwhile, on the edges of the growing wall of defense that hadn't been filled yet, the defenders had to focus on repelling the Borg.

"Hurry up, you guys!"shouted a black haired teenager on a Renaissance-like outfit consisting mostly of chainmail. The boy, Eric, also known as the Cavalier, bore an orange shield with a black circle with a white silhouette of a predator bird on it strapped to his left arm. A clear magical force field generated by the magic weapon was blocking the blasts of the approaching drones, but the constant hits were draining the will power that he used to reinforce it. "This isn't getting any easier."

"Quit your blubberin'! We're almost done with this, ya big baby." The Thing slammed two massive rocks in place, and then caught a third boulder which he pitched at the nearest drone. The Borg unit's personal force shield flared green for a moment to deflect most of the impact, but the drone was still knocked down by the force of the blow and rolled back a few feet. Taking only a few seconds to run a diagnostic and repair the minor damages it received, it was soon climbing back to it's feet. "These things sure can take a lickin', can't they?"

Eric gritted his teeth. "How about we stop admiring them, and figure out how we're going to survive them?"

One of the blasts made it over the edge of the mystical shield, striking the Thing in the shoulder knocking him back onto the ground. The orange rocky hided member of the Fantastic Four sat up and gingerly touched his slightly smoking shoulder. "Now they're makin' it personal."

Eric looked back with eyes wide with fear. "Well get back up here and make it personal back at them! They're almost up to me!"

Two blasts of yellow struck the closest drones to Eric's position, knocking them back into the drones right behind them. Keeping his shield in place, Eric looked up at the hill behind him where the bolts of yellow energy had come from. What he saw raised his hopes instantly. "It's about time you guys got here!"

There on the hill stood the rest of his friends. They had all been just kids living regular lives before that fateful day when they had gone on the Dungeons & Dragons roller coaster ride at the amusement park. Soon after the roller coaster had started, they had been somehow transported to another world. They hadn't been friends then, but after many adventures together, watching each others back, rescuing each other, foraging for food together, and so on, they had become a type of family. And Eric knew the others liked him even if he could be rather annoying at times.

Hank stood at the top of the hill and fired bolt after bolt at the drones with a magic bow that had no visible string, yet each time he motioned to draw an arrow a yellow energy string and arrow would appear. Upon arrival in the magic lands of the Realm, Hank had given the bow by a mysterious, short old man only known to them as Dungeonmaster, as well as the title of Ranger. As Eric received the shield and title of Cavalier and was given the clothing to match, so did the rest of their group. Bobby, the youngest of the team, an eight-year-old with an attitude, was given the title of Barbarian and an outfit to match, along with a large magical club with which he could inflict massive damage; now he used that club to knock boulders out toward the Borg drones like they were baseballs. Bobby's older sister, Sheila, was given a magical hooded cloak with which she was named Thief, much to her embarrassment, that could render her invisible. For now Sheila just stood next to Bobby and pointed where he should aim towards. Diana, an avid gymnast at her high school, was given a magical staff that extended, shrunk and was unbreakable and given the designation of Acrobat. Diana let her staff grow in length down towards Eric and then, when it touched the ground, she pushed away from the top of the cliff on the hill, using the staff's retracting ability to control her descent. And the last to appear on the hill was Eric's closest friend, the socially awkward Albert, a certifiable genius they had nicknamed 'Presto'. Dungeonmaster had given Presto the hard to control magical green cloth hat as well as the title Magician. With the magical hat, Presto could do all sorts of fantastic feats of magic but seemed to have little control over what the results would be. Even now, as he tried to rain down lightning on the attacking drones, the results were instead a sudden shower of flowers of every type and size.

Diana dropped to the ground next to Erik, glancing all around at the hodgepodge of unusual and extremely bizarre people working on barricades and repelling the oncoming Borg. "Geez, Eric, how is it that you always manage to get yourself in the worst messes?"

"You don't know the half of it!"

"Yes I do. Your telepathic friend, Professor X, has been filling us in on everything ever since we started climbing the other side of the hill."

"Oh, well… Then good." He flinched as another series of blasts struck the mystic shield that he held in place; he automatically turned, and then a quick flash of bright psychedelic colors came through the invisible mystic barrier and struck Eric right in the face.

"Eric!" Diana dropped to the ground and swung her staff, hitting Eric at the back of his knees, knocking him to the ground and out of reach of the next round of stun beams.

"Wha-what happened?" He rubbed his eyes while trying to get his bearings.

"The Borg found a way to get past your shield."

"Yow!" came a cry from the Thing. "Hey, kid, get your magical doohickey up and block their shots. Those things hurt."

"Sure, but in which direction? All I see is stars!"

Diana came up behind Eric and put her hand on his arm that was holding the shield. "Face it this way, Eric. Yeah, that's it. Now lift up the shield and focus your mind on a barrier in front of us."

"I-I dunno if I can! My head…feel so disoriented." Turning to the side, he suddenly threw up.

"Oh geez, Eric! That's gross."

"My-my head keeps spinning," Eric said apologetically before attending to emptying more of the contents of his stomach.

"I think that's what these Borg guys intended to do since they didn't have another way past your shield." She pulled Eric down low even as others began to duck for cover as well.

"Have no fear! Rygel is here!" An emerald wall of light slammed into place blocking further phaser fire followed by a small brown alien that gracefully came down to ground surrounded by a green aura. "Ah yes, you may thank me now as is my due."

"Rygel?" Diana watched in wonder as Rygel seemed to effortlessly hold the Borg assault back. "I didn't know you could do anything like that."

"He couldn't," spoke a feminine voice behind her. "Or at least he couldn't when you last saw him."

Diana glanced back in time to see Chiana get up from a metal slide that Presto had managed to conjure at the top of the hill. Behind her came Bobby holding Uni, the young unicorn.

"Ah, Chiana!" Rygel floated over toward her and, she noticed, two feet taller than her, which she assumed meant he wanted her to look up at him in more ways than one. "It is good to see that you are well."

"No thanks to you!" she snarled. "Frell, Rygel. You just ran away and left others to rescue me."

Rygel snorted. "I don't see what you are fussing about; you seem fine to me."

"Fine? Frell, are you kidding me? After those alien creatures carried us off, they built me into a subterranean wall and then used my stomach as an incubator for one of their young. And if that kid magician hadn't managed to abort the fetuses, those little monstrosities would have torn their way out of our chests! So you can understand when I say I'm not fine!"

"Bah! It is only a little matter." Rygel ignored her look of outrage. "What truly matters is that I have found a most wondrous magic ring." He held up the ring before his face, basking in it's emerald radiance. A green ring that he had found on the edge of the battlefield. A ring that had belonged to the Earth – 3 super-villain known as Power Ring, a evil doppelganger of Earth – 1's Green Lantern. A ring cursed to bring corruption onto it's bearer. "And with this ring –this ever so precious ring- I shall recover my throne and lead the Hynerian Empire against the Peacekeepers until they are made our slaves!"

"Rygel?" Chiana looked at him oddly. "Are you drunk?"

"Ha! Drunk with power, you mean!" He rose up in the sky, reveling in his abilities, forgetting about the energy wall he had erected, it faded away to nothing.

Chiana ducked down low on the ground to avoid being struck by a fresh volley of stun beams even as Rygel flew out to engage the Borg once more. "Magic ring or not, you're not getting off the hook so easily, Rygel. Just you wait and see."

"They got Sheila!"

Diana looked back, and seeing Bobby awkwardly easing his sister's fall to the ground, knew she had to act. Pushing Eric onto his back, she pulled his shield off his arm.

"What are you doing?" Eric exclaimed.

"It's just temporary," she answered. "Just until your head clears up. Which could take a while now that I think about it." Once the magical shield was on her arm, with her head turned away she stood up and focused on a barrier between her and the Borg. And it was there.

"Good going, girly." The Thing gave her a thumbs up before he renewed his efforts on building the stone wall.

Hank jumped off the metal slide and raced over to where Bobby was leaning over the still form of his sister.

Bobby looked up at him with tears in his eyes. "She isn't moving. Why isn't she moving?"

After examining her, Hank let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. "She's fine, Bobby. Just stunned is all."

"Re-really." He wiped the tears out of his eyes. "Well, she shouldn't scare me like that." He grabbed hold of Uni and pulled the started unicorn into a tight hug. "You won't tell her I cried, will you?"

"Our little secret."

_Pardon me for not getting back to you sooner_, came a voice in their heads.

"Professor X?"

_We have established a triage area off to your right. Look for your friend Enik. He and I are right on the edge of the triage area._

"Right." Hank picked Sheila up in his arms. Looking down at her, he wondered why, at moments like these, he didn't just tell her how he felt about her. He turned to go and then paused. He looked back at the others, noting that the Marshalls – Jack, Will and Holly – had made it down the slide along with the two children True and Uly. Khan Noonien Singh was just being helped to his feet the Human/Romulan hybrid Sela. "Khan, they have a triage set up over this way."

Khan reluctantly nodded. "Sela, you should stay and fight. I'll be back in a few moments. My leg needs to be properly bandaged."

Sela frowned, wondering if he was trying to purposely put some distance between them. Then she looked down at his leg, where one of the xenomorph aliens had speared his leg, and felt ashamed at her growing emotions toward him. "You can hardly walk. I-"

"I'll help him," volunteered Holly, eager to help with anything that would put some distance between her and all the fighting going on. She looked up at Sela and smiled, looking for approval for trying to help. Sela gave a rare smile and nodded to the teenager.

"And I'll help her," added Holly's uncle, Jack. "Besides I want a few words with Enik."

Relenting, Sela let Khan's weight shift from her shoulder and onto Jack's. She let a small smile come to her lips when Jack realized that Khan was a lot heavier than he thought. She took a moment watching them go with the two children, Uly and True, following after them. Then taking a look around, she was surprised to see such a diverse group of beings working together. Even Starfleet would be hard pressed to put together a more diverse group of races and individualities. It went against everything she had been taught while growing up on Romulus. But here they were doing it. And the abilities they possessed and the weapons wielded were nothing less than spectacular.

"Excuse us."

Sela looked behind her and saw two men supporting a third man, who'd evidently been injured in some way.

"Hey lady," said one of the supporting men, who wasn't wearing a shirt. "Can you get out of the way sometime this light-year? We have an injured man here."

The injured man lifted his head groggily, showing a lot of blood on his forehead. "Itzz okay. I told them I can't die. I'm the plucky comic relief in the show-show-show. You know! Ow! My head hurts. Did I tell you my head hurts?" He took a moment to look at both of the men that were supporting him. "Well, it does."

"He's not going to be much use for awhile," Sela say in her cold, calculating tone. "This may be all over by the time he is able to reliably aim a weapon without killing one of us by mistake."

"Well," said the shirtless man. "He's one of my men. And I mean to do the best I can for him. If you don't mind, we'd like to get him to the triage. So can you move?"

In spite of herself, she smiled and stepped aside. "I'd ask you to '_keep your shirt on'_," she said, using one of the few Earth colloquialism she had picked up from her Human mother, "but looks like you already lost yours."

The other supporting man, wearing a battered false skull cap, looked up in annoyance. "He always manages to lose his shirt during a fight."

"No, I don't," responded the shirtless man.

Responding to the talking voices, the injured man raised his head again. "Did someone say '_action_'? Do I have any lines in this scene?"

"No, Guy," said the man with the strange head piece, "Jason's keeping all the lines to himself again. Just like always."

The shirtless man, Jason, rolled his eyes so far back his head rolled, too. "Dane, do you really think this is the time for complaining about something I don't have any control over. If you want to complain about the amount of lines you have on the show then take it up with the writers, and not me!"

"Fine, I will!"

"I will, too!" exclaimed Guy, "But I'm going to have the raspberry swirl in a waffle cone with a cherry on the side."

Jason gave a look of concern. "A cherry on the side? Oh, he isn't well at all."

Sela watched them as they went, unsure of what to make of the strange Humans. Their bizarre antics annoyed her, but somewhere within her, she noted some amusement as well. Could that be something she inherited from her mother, Tasha Yar? She surely didn't get it from her father.

Her eyes latched onto one figure in the moving mass of desperate defenders. The android Lore stood near the middle of the rock wall, but she saw no sign of her other companions. Keeping her head low, she moved toward him while trying to stay out of the defenders way. Just before she passed the undead Divine Assassin known as Kai, one of the Borg shots hit him right in his towering black beehive hairdo, causing his hair to fall all over in disarray. Uncaring, the alien zombie fired a tethered bladed brace that came out of his wrist at the shooter over seventy feet away. The sharp blade struck the Sleestak Borg drone in the neck, decapitating it, and then retracted back into Kai's wrist.

"Get your head down, miss." The man, wearing a dark suit and tie, had actually grabbed her wrist and pulled her down even as some more firing had struck through the air above them. Even so, she had to hold down her irritation and anger so as to not strike the man for daring to lay a hand on her.

A darker Human, wearing similar attire, turned to his partner. "Kay, I thought you said this was going to be as easy job?"

"Slick, you've been an MiB agent for a couple of years now. You'd think by now that you'd realize that none of the jobs we are given can be evaluated as easy."

"You think this is hard?" said Captain Page, the head of Special Unit 2 in Chicago. "I once had to lead an assault on over a hundred zombies in Central Park during the Thanksgiving Holidays. In the middle of the day. And then I had to cover it up, even though it had been televised and had dozens of wounded victims and casualties."

"Zombies, huh?" Agent Jay smiled and shook his head. "Well we've dealt with a giant, super strong alien bug that would have sent your zombies running for their mummies."

Nick O'Malley, one of the operatives of Special Unit 2, ducked down from firing, and gave a big grin. "Well, we'll see you your alien bug and raise you one large flying dragon."

"A dragon? Seriously? Well…" Taking a moment, he sat up and fired a few rounds at the Borg. "Hah, I once had to deal with a giant alien worm that once ate all the cars on a subway train. While they were in motion. And I was on the train."

"Oh, yeah?" Nick's grin faltered for only a moment. "Well we have to deal with Carl." For emphasis, he pulled the kicking Gnome over.

"What? Small fries here?"

"Trust me," Nick said with a grin. "The longer you are around him, the more the horror grows."

"Very funny, O'Malley!" Carl grabbed hold of Nick's shirt and pulled himself up till they were face to face. "But if it's scary you want, you should send him to visit with your mother. Now that's scary."

Nick frowned. "What did I tell you about playing the 'mother' card, Carl?"

Sela moved on. She had experienced comrades exchanging stories – mostly after the battle with several bottles of Romulan ale – but to do so during exchanges of fire? Any Romulan soldier who behaved in such a manner would most likely face a firing squad as soon as the fighting was over.

"I'm telling you that when we fought those villains the guy with the magician's top hat turned me into a statue!"

Another group of oddly dressed Humans stood next to the wall. Sela regarded them carefully, but couldn't figure out why they were here with the other fighters along the wall.

"What did it feel like?" asked the Invisible Boy.

The Shoveller considered it for a moment. "Stiff."

"How do you know he didn't just hypnotize you into thinking you were a statue?" queried the Spleen, skeptically.

"Because he turned me into a statue, damn it! That's why?"

The Sphinx elbowed Mr. Furious, who was sitting next to him. "What do you lose when you leave the door of your house open on a cold, winter day?"

Mr. Furious, nodded, taking his cue, answered: "Your TEMPERture." He clapped his hands together. "Okay guys, group huddle. And keep your heads low, the wall isn't that high." They had to wait a minute for the reluctant Bowler to join them. "Alright guys, this is the biggest battle of our lives. I know it looks like it might be our Alamo, but if we stand together and do our best, we just might survive this."

"This is your idea of a motivational speech?" exclaimed the Blue Raja, who was polishing the few forks he had left in his arsenal.

"I'm not finished."

"According to your speech, we pretty much are!"

Mr. Furious held up his hands in a 'just wait a minute gesture'. "If some of us die-"

"There you go again!"

"-we will be giving our lives to save untold billions of parallel universes from an insurmountable Borg invasion. Here, we have a chance to stop them. If we had never come here, and the Borg won and began to assimilate the multiverse, there would be no way we could have stopped the Borg from claiming our planet and the rest of our universe." He looked at each of his teammates in the eye. "This is our stand. This is why we became heroes." He held his hand out palm down. The Shoveller was the first to put his hand over Mr. Furious' followed by the Invisible Boy, then the Sphinx, the Spleen, the Bowler, and then reluctantly, the Blue Raja.

Sela moved on as the Mystery Men returned to the fighting. She paused only for a minute to watch the Bowler send a clear bowling with a skull inside it flying through the air, weaving about and striking down drones like they were bowling pins. She wondered how the young woman controlled the ball, and thought about inquiring until she saw the Spleen's method of attacking, and turned away in disgust.

She came to a gap in the wall and stopped, not daring to continue on into the open with the Borg so close. Sela saw a blond woman in a tight-fitting blue uniform standing out in the open unafraid. The Romulan's first thought was that the woman was suicidal or just frozen in panic. Then she noticed that the blasts from the Borg were hitting an invisible barrier right in front of the woman.

"Don't worry," said a feminine voice behind her. "The invisible barrier Sue's making is able to keep them from us."

Sela turned to face a brown woman. "Are you telling me that she's generating a force field that's powerful enough to block Borg attacks?"

"So far, yeah." The woman smiled. "I'm Martha Jones."

Sela turned back to watch as Sue Storm-Richards rebuffed blast after blast of blasts from the drones. "How is that even possible?" She imagined the scientists on Romulus digging through all the scientific possibilities of what she was watching. How she wished she had a tricorder to record all this.

"And you are…?"

"What…oh, Sela." The Romulan woman looked around again, amazed as a man with wings on his back flew overhead, a seven-year-old little girl caught boulders thrown to her like they were plastic balls, a muscular man with a hammer in his hand seemed to call down lightning from the sky, in the distance she could see a giant cyborg woman fighting a giant ape. "How is any of this possible?"

The woman nodded, and had just a bit of a smile. "I ask that myself all the time. I find it easier to just go with it. You know what I mean?"

Sela didn't. But before she could ask, someone shouted, "Incoming!"

All eyes turned upwards. A figure was rocketing toward them from out of the sky. Two figures, actually, entwined in battle.

"Wait!" someone yelled. "I recognize one of them. They're heading for the circle!"

"I got them! I got them!" exclaimed Mega Boy. The young teen began to expand like a balloon, becoming taller and wider, as he used his powers. Several people scattered to give the youth a chance to grow even more. Then, before the two plummeting people hit the blubberous teen, another figure leaped up and seemed to encapsulate them. Mega Boy expelled a great 'Oooof!" and then stumbled back a few feet, until Mr. Incredible helped to steady him.

"Good catch, boy," said Mr. Incredible, patting Mega Boy on the back.

"I –I had them. And then someone tried to catch them first," Mega Boy said, irritated at having his moment of heroism taken from him, he began to deflate down to his normal size.

"Gloop wasn't trying to steal your thunder, boy," said a red-headed man who was dressed for a much warmer climate. He reached out and helped a yellowish colored gelatous mass that flowed off of Mega Boy with the two falling figures intact. "Gloop knew that they would have a much greater chance of surviving their fall if they were doubly cushioned." The man offered his hand to Mega Boy. "I am Zandor and this is my friend Gloop."

Mega Boy took Zandor's hand and shook, but could only stare at Gloop. He had seen the strange protoplasmic creature here and there on the battlefield, but not up close. Up close it seemed a lot bigger, as well as more intimidating with the two people struggling inside it. Two dark circles floating toward the top seemed to be eyes that regarded him intently for a moment. 'Um…good job," Mega Boy managed to say.

Gloop stretched upwards toward Mega Boy who tried not to flinch. Gloop gurgled in it's language and then turned to release the two persons from within itself gently onto the ground.

Zandor helped the first person up. He recognized him as someone he had briefly met on the TARDIS. "The Rocketeer, right?"

The Rocketeer pulled off his rather unique helmet. "Call me Cliff."

Zandor smiled. "I never understood why you people have duel identities. My friend, Space Ghost, has tried to explain the concept to me, but…" He shrugged.

"I've discovered that it has it's ups and downs." The Rocketeer stretched as he checked his body for any sign of injury, wincing when he came to his bloody left arm. "Good catch, kid." Cliff nodded to Mega Boy who suddenly became embarrassed.

A little man in a white lab coat pushed his way past the curious onlookers. "Clear the way! Move it or lose it!" Dr. Sivana hurried forward with a large, nasty-looking syringe. "Where is the infected bastard? Ah ha!"

Now that he was in the large circle, Wotan's Collective Free Zone, Lexington sat up slowly as his mind cleared so that he could reflect on all that had happened. He looked down in horror at the darkish silver webbing that had spread under his tough hide. One of the drones that the small Gargoyle had been fighting in an aerial battle had managed to infect him; he'd felt the pain of the entry wound, but he'd been running high on adrenaline and fear so he hadn't noticed at first. He'd been knocked unconscious but rescued by Cliff. He'd been fortunate to have only received a very small dose of the Borg nano-probes in his system or who knows what would have happened to him by now. Once he'd woke up and realized what had happened, he'd tried to break away from Cliff who'd been flying them to safety. Due to that airborne scuffle, they had flown all over the sky of this small microverse they had been brought to. Cliff had finally been able to render Lexington unconscious, but not before the nano-probes had been able to mostly take over Lexington's actions and do some critical damage to Cliff's arm. Cliff's rocket pack had to have been running on fumes to bring them back.

Dr. Sivana stepped up behind the small Gargoyle and jabbed the needle deep into Lexington's arm, pushing the syringe down fast.

"AAAAAK!" Lexington jumped to his feet and batted the mad scientist across the ground. "What was …?" The small gargoyle wobbled on his feet. A circle of onlookers from both camps, heroes and villains, stood ground to make sure the foundling drone didn't escape to become a fully processed Borg drone.

All eyes watched Lexington wobble first one way and then the other, sometimes with eyes rolled back in his head.

"What the hell was that?" demanded the Rocketeer. "What did that little gnome put in him?"

T.O. Morrow, a regular foe of the Justice League of America, looked up from where he'd been helping Dr. Sivana get to his feet. "Trust me. You don't want to know what he was injected with. Just be happy that it works."

"Works? Works how?"

Lexington fell on all fours, opened his mouth and began to expel blackened, destroyed nano-probes. If that wasn't bad enough, more of the no longer functioning nanites began pouring out from the Gargoyle's loin cloth as well.

Dr. Sivana adjusted his glasses. "It'll clean him out. But he'll be in recovery for quite a while. This kind of quick fix has it's drawbacks."

"So you have a cure for when one of us gets sick, right?"

Morrow chuckled. "We should send this boy to the head of the class, eh, Sivana?"

The Rocketeer ignored the insult. "So how close are you to having a vaccine?"

Both scientists looked up at him. "What did you say?"

"A vaccine! You know, something you put in our bodies to keep whatever the hell those things are that the Borg put in you from taking effect."

"We know what a vaccine is!" snapped Dr. Sivana.

"Are you even trying to make one?"

Both scientists stared at each other for a minute, before running to where their makeshift lab was.

"We'll get back to you on that!" called out Dr. Morrow.

The Rocketeer sat down with a weary groan. "Why is it that those two don't inspire me with confidence?"

Sela turned back to Martha Jones. "There seems to be some difficulty in working together."

Martha nodded. "Considering that we mostly came in two groups, each charged with taking down the other, as well as defeating the Borg, I'd say we are functioning together remarkably well."

"Two teams?"

"Yeah. No one told you?" They ducked down as something exploded nearby. "Well," Martha continued, as if they were just chatting during a chance meeting on a street, "the people on this side are the good guys literally. There are heroes and heroines gathered from various worlds and times by my friend the Doctor."

Sela tensed. She had been told of the Doctor by Q2 and knew that he was an enemy. "And the other side?" she asked, thinking she already knew the answer.

"Villains, murderers, tyrants and worse. They were gathered by a time-lord called the Master, though it appears that the Master has abandoned them. With the Borg having taken down the first wave of heroes, we had to make an alliance with the Master's army."

"I see." The Master was another name she remembered from her discussion with Q2. Originally her team was supposed to have met up and join the Master in their quest to be the ones to destroy the Borg in this strange microverse world.

A movement over by the trauma center caught her eye. Holly was there and waving for her. She could see Khan sitting on a fallen log while a large blue-furred man bandaged his leg with surprising care and skill. "Excuse me," she said to Martha Jones, "but I see a …a friend wanting me to come over to her." Something seemed to catch in her throat when she had tried to say friend. Was that really what she thought of the young girl? How had that happened so quickly? Was this another damn weakness she had inherited from her mother?

As she came closer she noted Enik, who she had met earlier, standing next to a man in a wheelchair. It was Captain Jean-Luc Picard. She went to reach for her phaser only to discover that her arm wouldn't move.

_I am not this Captain Picard you picture so loudly in your mind_, came a voice in her head. _Although the feats you credit him are quite remarkable, I am afraid my resume is quite different. My name is Professor Charles Xavier._

_Get out of my head!_

_Technically, I'm not in your head. I'm merely skimming your surface thoughts in order to communicate with you._

_How are you doing this?_ she thought back while trying to calm herself and erecting a mental shield that all Romulian officers are expected to learn as a defense against Vulcan spies.

_A nice attempt at shielding your thoughts, but I think your teachers ever dealt with a telepath at my level._ _And, no, I am not a Betazoid._ He paused for a moment. _You are one of the Master's allies._

She felt a moment of fear and guilt. Both of which surprised her.

_And you don't want Holly to know that_, stated the voice in her head.

Sela could see that the bald man who looked like Picard was considering the information he had scanned from her. She slowed down her walk, letting some other people pass through the maze of makeshift pallets or bare earth where the wounded or those being reclaimed from the Borg were laying.

_Be at ease, Sela. It has become a hobby of mine to give people a chance to reform._

_By mental manipulation?_ she rhetorically accused.

_No. That would be too easy. Plus, when a person does the hard work of changing themselves, their character strengthens in ways that mental manipulation could never accomplish. _

There was a small explosion of dark smoke and a whiff of sulfur on her left. She whirled to see what it was but was once again surprised when her right arm refused to pull her phaser from it's holster.

_It's all right. Only one of my students_, explained Professor X.

Sela eyed the dark, blue skinned man with only three unusually large digits for each hand and two large toes for each foot as well as a long, barbed tail. _He's definitely not Human, _she though even as she watched him gently lay down one of the dark robed ninjas who had been injured.

_Actually he is Human. Or perhaps I should say a Human Mutant, like I am._

_How could he be a Human? His appearance is too different._

_I've heard that argument a lot where I come from. _Sela thought she heard Xavier telepathically sigh. _Perhaps the universal laws are different, but in the universe I am from, such mutations are possible though extremely rare. I developed telepathic abilities, while other mutants can turn their body to steel, manipulate the weather, walk through walls, or bore holes through mountains with their eyes._

For a moment, Sela contemplated what it would mean to bring genetic samples of these mutants back home to Romulus, then froze, remembering she was dealing with a powerful telepath. She stole a glance at Xavier and saw disappointment in his eyes.

_Being a telepath can be very frustrating. Do you know why?_

Sela was still, afraid to answer.

_It's not so much that I can know what people are thinking; it's that I can know why they think or do certain things when even they don't understand it. For example, your affection for Holly does not stem from a maternal instinct, but rather from your memories of your mother._

_Feelings of anger and outrage built up within her. My mother tried to take me away from my father! She tried to take me away from Romulus!_

_The only home you had ever known. The Romulus I see through your eyes functions is a cold, manipulative, back-stabbing environment. But your mother wanted you to grow up in a braver, kinder environment like that of the Federation. _

She paused, somewhat unsettled that he knew that, and knowing that he had to be reading her mind in order to know that. She watched as another blue humanoid that was also very husky and hairy instructed a woman in a red and gold outfit who has channeling electrical energy through a device on her wrist in an attempt to weld shut a large wound on the back of a large, orange silicon humanoid.

_That's Dr. Henry McCoy; he's another one of my students._

_He looks like a beast._

_Beast is a codename he uses due to his appearance. But he is actually quite refined, and would be considered a genius on many levels even in your universe._

She was about to state that she doubted that when she realized that Xavier could very well compare what she knew to what he knew. _Damn telepaths._

Xavier looked amused. _The woman is called Electra Woman. Dr. McCoy is instructing her as she uses a device she calls her ElectraCom to weld close a potentially life-threatening wound on General Tragg, who I should inform you is who the Master left in charge of his forces. Unfortunately, he's unconscious right now. If you wish, I could connect you with one of my evil counterpart telepaths who could direct you to wherever you wish to go._

_No!_ She felt conflicted. _At least not yet._

_Very well then. I have some pressing matters to attend to as I am sure you do as well. But before I go, here is a little gift that may help you while you are here._

A rush of data entered her head before she could even think to try put up a mental shield to block it. She blinked, and then she realized she knew the names of everyone there as well as who arrived with the Master and who came with the Doctors. She knew he was gone then.

From across the way she saw Khan look up at her with a curious look in his eye. She mentally abashed herself when she realized she had stopped walking all together. She nodded to him, and then motioned towards where Lore was. He nodded, in agreement.

Passing by some more people, she made her way over to where a young man appeared to be giving instructions to Lore. With as much as Lore looked like Data, she was glad for the damage Lore had received on his face which left some of his android components exposed.

"C'mon, Lore! Shoot them down, my man! Show them that they can't mess with us!"

Lore ducked down from his spot on the wall, recalibrated his phaser, then stood and fired. "First off, I'm not your man or anyone else. I'm an android. Secondly, there is no us. I'm the one doing the fighting, not you."

"But we can be buddies, pals, amigos. Give this arrangement a chance."

"Thirdly, if I ever get purged of those damn robot laws that doubly damned time-lord put in me, then you will see what kind of amigos we can be."

Sela's ears perked up at that. _So Lore's been compromised._ She thought about it for a moment and then decided to go ahead and make contact.

"Lore."

The android ducked down from firing. Turning to her, he greeted her with a smile. "Ah, Commander Sela, it's a pleasure to see you." His eyes quickly scanned the background. "And I see you managed to rescue Khan as well, though he looks a little worse for wear."

"You seem good. Your arm is still attached; I guess that means the Professor knew what he was doing when he reattached your arm."

Lore's face was venomous. "Oh, he knew what he was doing. He knew enough to add some new priority protocols to my system without letting anyone else realize what he was doing, including myself."

"New protocols?"

"Um, hello?" The young man stepped in between her and Lore. "Hi, I'm Jake, Jake Foley."

"Commander Sela of the Romulan Empire," she stated coolly.

"Um, I hope you don't mind me asking, but are you an Elf?"

Her left eye twitched, but beyond that Jake had no idea how close he came to being killed on the spot.

"It's just your ears, you know, they are pointy and that is one of the characteristics Elves are supposed to have."

Lore closed his eyes and shook his head. "For all intents and purposes, he's an idiot."

"Hey!" exclaimed Jake. "What did I tell you about the insulting comments?"

Sela saw an ever-so-brief struggle in Lore's face before he complied. "Insults are not appreciated," Lore said in Jake's voice.

"Wow! You do voices, too! That's cool!" Jake said, ecstatically. "Can you do accents, too?"

"No, I'm not an Elf," Sela interjected before Jake could ask anything else of Lore. "How did you come to control Lore?"

Hesitation crossed Jake's features, but before he could respond, there was a large explosion nearby on the villains' side that rocked the wall knocking them all over.

Sela struggled to get back on her feet, her ears ringing. Looking over she could see a man that, thanks to Professor Xavier, she now knew was called Lightning Lord firing burst of lightning bolts from both of his hands at Borg drones trying to come through a breach in the wall. The Nemesis Kid rushed the first drone that made it through the breach in the way, attacking the Ferengi drone brutally. King Kull, Zorak, Beast Man, Scorpia, Rocksteady and Bebop hurried over while Kanjar Ro, Tri-Klops, Dr. Light, General Immortus, Jack of Clubs, Mirror Master and several Horde Troopers fired over their heads.

Looking around Sela could see several wounded individuals that had been on that part of the wall. The cyborg Superman villain Metallo was the first to return to fighting. Catman was groggily coming to but the Monocle was dead due to head trauma.

She heard Lore say something to her, but the ringing in her ears blocked out the meaning of whatever words he was saying. He was firing from his place at the wall, but when he ducked down to recalibrate the energy frequency of his phaser, she saw three red dots on his chest that mad the shape of a triangle.

Then she knew the hunters had returned for them.

**NOTES:**

_For those that don't remember, the Dungeons & Dragons kids first encountered Enik in chapter 2._

_Sela and Khan first met Enik and the Dungeons & Dragons kids in chapter 13._

_Lore had his arm blown off by one of the Predator hunters, to which Lore retaliated by shooting off arm of the leader of the alien hunters which all happened in chapter 3. The Professor (also known as the 7__th__ incarnation of the Doctor) reattached Lore's arm in chapter 8 along with programming him with Asimov's three laws of robotics._

**In Order Of Appearance:**

The Borg – from Star Trek

The Master – from Doctor Who

The Doctors – from Doctor Who

Prof. X – from the movie X-Men

Enik – from the TV show Land of the Lost

Mr. Medulla – from the movie Sky High

Brainwave – from DC Comics

Dr. Psycho – from the DC Comics

Hector Hammond – from DC Comics

Wotan – from DC Comics

Black Adam – from DC Comics

Wizard – from DC Comics

Shoveller – from the movie Mystery Men

Abra Kadabra – from DC Comics

Parasite – from DC Comics

Ookla the Mok – from the cartoon Thundarr the Barbarian

Ghostbusters – from Ghostbusters

Gentleman Ghost – from DC Comics

Owlman – from DC Comics

Carl the Gnome – from TV show Special Unit 2

Thorn – from DC Comics

Layla – from the movie Sky High

Will Stronghold – from the movie Sky High

Princess Ariel – from the cartoon Thundarr the Barbarian

Willow Rosenberg – from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Igoo – from the cartoon The Herculoids

Princess – from the movie Zoom

Colossus – from the movie X-Men

Commander – from the movie Sky High

Thing – from the movie Fantastic Four

Mr. Incredible – from the movie The Incredibles

Mr. Hyde – from the movie The League of Extra-Ordinary Men

Thor – from the movie Thor / Marvel Comics

Felix Faust – from DC Comics

Bizarro – from DC Comics

Fiddler – from DC Comics

Sonar – from DC Comics

Captain Cold – from DC Comics

Mr. Freeze – from DC Comics

Icicle – from DC Comics

Minister Blizzard – from DC Comics

Matter Master – from DC Comics

Major Disaster – from DC Comics

Eric / Cavalier – from the cartoon Dungeons & Dragons

Hank / Ranger – from the cartoon Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeonmaster – from the cartoon Dungeons & Dragons

Bobby / Barbarian – from the cartoon Dungeons & Dragons

Sheila / Thief – from the cartoon Dungeons & Dragons

Diana / Acrobat – from the cartoon Dungeons & Dragons

Presto / Magician – from the cartoon Dungeons & Dragons

Ryel – from Farscape

Chiana – from Farscape

Uni – from the cartoon Dungeons & Dragons

Power Ring – from DC Comics (_died in chapter 20_)

Jack Marshall – from the TV show Land of the Lost

Will Marshall – from the TV show Land of the Lost

Holly Marshall – from the TV show Land of the Lost

True – from the TV show Earth 2

Uly – from the TV show Earth 2

Khan Noonien Singh – from Star Trek

Sela – from Star Trek: The Next Generation

Jason Nesmith – from the movie Galaxy Quest

Guy Fleegman – from the movie Galaxy Quest

Tasha Yar – from Star Trek: The Next Generation (_mentioned only_)

Alexander Dane – from the movie Galaxy Quest

Lore – from Star Trek: The Next Generation

Kai – from the TV show Lexx

Agent Kay – from Men in Black

Agent Jay – from Men in Black

Captain Richard Page – from the TV show Special Unit 2

Det. Nick O'Malley – from the TV show Special Unit 2

Carl the Gnome – from the TV show Special Unit 2

Shoveller – from the movie Mystery Men

Invisible Boy – from the movie Mystery Men

Spleen – from the movie Mystery Men

Sphinx – from the movie Mystery Men

Mr. Furious – from the movie Mystery Men

Bowler – from the movie Mystery Men

Blue Raja – from the movie Mystery Men

Invisible Woman – from the movie Fantastic Four

Giganta – from DC Comics

Mr. Atom – from DC Comics

King Kong – from the movie King Kong

Martha Jones – from Doctor Who

Angel – from the movie X-Men

Thor – from the up-coming movie

Mega Boy – from the movie Zoom

Gloop – from the cartoon Herculoids

Zandor – from the cartoon Herculoids

Rocketeer – from the movie Rocketeer

Space Ghost – from the cartoon Space Ghost (mentioned only)

Dr. Sivana – from DC Comics

Lexington – from the cartoon Gargoyles

T.O. Morrow – from DC Comics

Doctor – from Doctor Who (mentioned only)

Master – from Doctor Who (mentioned only)

Q2 – (my own creation but from the Star Trek universe)

Beast – from the movie X-Men

Professor Xavier – from the movie X-Men

Nightcrawler – from the movie X-Men

Electra Woman – from the TV show Electra Woman and Dyna Girl

General Tragg – from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Data – from Star Trek: The Next Generation

Jake Foley – from the TV show Jake 2.0

Lightning Lord – from DC Comics

Nemesis Kid – from DC Comics

King Kull – from DC Comics

Zorak – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Beast Man – from the cartoon He-Man and the Masters of the Universe

Scorpia – from the cartoon She-Ra

Rocksteady – from the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Bebop – from the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Kanjar Ro – from DC Comics

Tri-Klops – from the cartoon He-Man and the Masters of the Universe

Dr. Light – from DC Comics

General Immortus – from DC Comics

Jack of Clubs – from DC Comics

Mirror Master – from DC Comics

Horde Troopers – from the cartoon She-Ra

Metallo – from DC Comics

Catman – from DC Comics

Monocle – from DC Comics

Hunters – from the movie Predator


	33. Chapter 33

**Chapter 33**

_What came before… (a quick recap)_

_With the Borg drones beginning to swarm on them, the heroes and villains have to stop fighting each other and join together in order to survive. They have built a wall to fight from but the Borg managed to breach it on the villains' side. Also, Sela made contact with Lore just before spotting the familiar dots of red light in the shape of a triangle on Lore's chest…_

_And now on with the story_

"Down!" she cried. Without thinking, Sela tackled Lore, knocking him down just before a blast from a weapon put a hole in the wall just behind him.

Lore rolled clear, brought his weapon up, and began to scan the hilly area behind him for the Yautja sniper. "The damn alien hunters are back! They've got horrible timing!"

"How many?" Sela managed to ask. Her shoulder ached from where she had made contact with Lore during her tackle, but she was feeling fortunate that the heavily padded shoulders of her Romulan uniform cushioned some of the impact with the tough android body.

"One at least."

She wanted to snap off something sarcastic but had to roll out of the way of reinforcements coming to try stop the Borg.

"Midway up the hill near that long slide." Lore fired his phaser but the Yautja shooter dropped into the midst of the people. "When the hell did they put a slide in?"

She smiled despite everything going on. She knew Data, Lore's android sibling, would never say anything like that. "It's how I came here with the rest of my party."

"Damn it! I've lost track of him!"

"What are you doing?" Jake Foley jumped down next to the android. "They're coming through over there, not up on the hill."

Lore bared his teeth in fury, but was impotent to lash out at the young man who had managed to gain control over him. "The shot that almost destroyed me came from over there!"

"Then it must have been an accident," Jake stated. "This many people jammed up together with all this firepower, there is bound to be a couple of stray shots. We need to-"

Lore closed his eyes, his mind quickly calculating all the different ways that he could kill Jake, as well as running a self diagnostic to check for possible damages to his positronic brain caused by the stress of trying to bare putting up with this insufferable Human. "You don't understand. These particular aliens are trophy hunters – and we're the trophies! And they want me in particular because I shot off one of their arms (even if it was just after they shot off one of mine). Do you understand now?"

Jake's eyes were riveted on something else. Lore turned and saw a large, stout drone that had not been fully processed in the drone-making procedure was forcibly coming through the wall.

"Try not to hurt him!" someone shouted from the ranks of the heroes. "He's one of ours from the first charge! Broadway of the Gargoyles!"

"Then you fight him!" snapped Rag Doll, as he climbed out of reach of the Gargoyle-drone's grasp and onto his back.

Another villain, Solomon Grundy, took matters into his own hands, literally, by grabbing a hold of Broadway and throwing him high up into the air, barely giving Rag Doll a chance to jump to safety. The skyward Gargoyle stretched out him wings to gain control of his impromptu flight and was soon slowly spiraling downwards again to rejoin the attack.

Using the distraction, Sela came up close to Jake and put her phaser in his back. "All right, I want you to undo whatever you did to Lore right now." She knew she had to hurry. The confusion of the breach in the wall would only distract people so long, and that included Professor Xavier, with whom she had been in telepathic communication just a few minutes before.

Jake's eyes widened in realization to the new threatening situation on his life. "You got to be kidding, right?" He looked to Lore. "Tell me she's kidding."

"Sela," Lore began, "there's an aspect of the new bylines I have to follow that you should know about before you go any further."

Sela glanced at Lore and raised an eyebrow. She kept Jake close to her so that prying eyes couldn't see the phaser she had planted tightly in his back.

"The Professor," he said, indicating one of the first contacts they had in this strange land, "turned out to be one of the time-lords we were told about. And when he managed to reattach my arm, he also included something he called the Three Laws of Robotics. One of these laws mentions not allowing any Human to come to harm. But Jake here managed to make it so that I could only obey him. And also to make sure his safety is my highest concern."

"Meaning that if I try to harm your 'boss', then you have to try stop me."

Jake suddenly smiled. "Hey, that's right."

Sela didn't let go. "But it could also be interpreted that if you did try and take him away from me, it would most likely cause Jake harm by my shooting you in the back."

Lore smiled. "I see what you mean."

Sela leaned close to Jake's ear. "So I think you should just release Lore for everyone's sake."

"Um, I don't think I can."

Sela pressed the phaser deeper into Jake's back.

"I mean," Jake began again, "I don't know how to undo it. Or even if I can undo it." He gave her a weak smile. "For instance, if I did undo it, I'd be putting my life at risk because then Lore would probably try to kill me. I don't know if you noticed, but he seems to have that killer android mentality you see in the movies. And even if he promised not to kill or harm me and meant it, well, then I wouldn't have any protection in this place, and that would also be endangering me so he couldn't allow me to remove the very priorities that keep me safe."

She felt a headache coming on. "I'm beginning to not like you."

"Imagine how I feel," Lore stated, firing his phaser in rapid secession at the nearby drones trying to break through the hole in the wall. "And I should warn you, I've already formulated eighteen ways to incapacitate you and free him, albeit, against what I really wish to happen."

As much as she hated to admit it, she knew they were at an impasse. "Very well," she said, letting Jake go. "We will resolve this later. But the threat Lore mentioned is true. That blast was exactly like that of the alien hunters we first encountered."

Jake's face seemed stricken. "Now that you mention it I remember something that might relate to that. One of the things Professor X told us was that some of the combatants had encountered large dangerous aliens that could disappear and were killing people in order to collect trophies."

Lore grit his teeth. "Not that I want to argue, but when did he tell you that."

"Oh, it was a telepathic warning for everyone." He smiled sheepishly. "I guess your type of brain doesn't receive that kind of communication."

"Coming through, people!" shouted a man in a reddish-orange superhero uniform. Mr. Incredible was carrying a boulder that was almost the size of a bus over his head. People everywhere dove for cover to give him room in case he dropped the mammoth rock. After passing Sela, Lore and Jake, Mr. Incredible threw the rock the rest of the way, shouting, "Watch out!"

Using the boulder as a plug in the wall might have worked, except for the sudden barrage of energy beams that turned the boulder to smoking dust before it even touched the wall.

Mr. Incredible stood there with his mouth wide open. Pumyra of the ThunderCats patted him on the shoulder. They were of different species, but fighting together on a battlefield built a type of comradery that transposed any bias. "There will be other boulders. It was a great try."

"Uh, yeah, I guess so," he responded, feeling somewhat crestfallen.

A sudden familiar short blurring form stopped in front of him. "Dad! That was so cool! One second it was a huge rock, and the next, Poof! It was ash!"

"Dash!" He picked up his son, pulling him close. "We were starting to get worried."

"Oh man! That evil speedster chasing me was way faster than I am! Johnny Quick even chased me up the back of a dinosaur. Turns out he was just toying with me at first! If it hadn't been for that other speedster, Zoom, I'd be toast!"

"Zoom? Yeah, he was on the TARDIS with us, right?" He glanced around. "Where is he now?"

"He's coming. He's had to take it slower due to some busted ribs."

Mr. Incredible grinned. "Yeah, I think I might have one or two broken ribs, too."

"You should have your chest looked at," commented Pumyra, before she began firing over the stone wall again.

"It can wait." He grinned again to his son. "Now you go find your mother and let her know you are safe, okay? We've both been worried."

A little disappointed, Dash reluctantly agreed, and sped off to find his mother.

"Seems like a very good lad. He will follow in your footsteps," Pumyra said. "Indeed, he is already."

"Uh, pardon me, but if you could just step aside for a moment. We're trying to play through here."

Pumyra and Mr. Incredible turned to see a seven foot tall man with a startling green complexion and bolts on the side of his head.

Pumyra leaned over to Mr. Incredible. "Is he one of the Borg?" she whispered.

Mr. Incredible couldn't help staring. "I…I don't think so."

Herman Munster (the one with the green complexion) pointed down to where his golf ball was near his very large feet. "See, my golf balls right here and the hole is over that way," he explained pointing in their direction.

Mr. Incredible was the first to find words. "You're trying to play a game of golf…through a battlefield?"

Herman nodded. "You see, my friend Gomez had this course all set up to play golf before anyone showed up here to fight. But instead of disrupting your fighting, we decided to just enjoy the ambiance as we play through."

"_Ambiance?_" Pumyra managed to say.

"Yes," Herman said, happy that they seemed to understand. "So if you would just stand aside for a moment." He motioned to the left and they moved. "Perfect."

Herman lined up next to his golf ball, wound up and swung. The golf ball shot out, striking the metallic side of the head of a Sleestak drone – killing it, while bouncing the ball back into the area of the villains, where it embedded into the head of one of Garguax's tall yellow plastic robots which fell backwards and landed on top of Garguax to which the obese green alien began shouting a number of intergalactic curses.

Herman looked embarrassed when he glanced over to Mr. Incredible and Pumyra. "Um, do you think I should take a mulligan?"

"…I would," Mr. Incredible finally responded.

Herman nodded gratefully. "Oh, thank you. I'm rather new to this game." The greenish-hued man looked down to his left. "A new golf ball please, Thing. I'm taking a mulligan."

Mr. Incredible and Pumyra looked back down the row of fighters to where Ben Grimm, also known as the Thing, was just finishing putting the last boulders in place. Before they could ask Herman to clarify, they both jumped at seeing a dismembered hand scampering across the ground and place a new golf ball on a tee.

"Thank you, Thing."

The dismembered hand made an 'okay' sign and then scampered away on it's fingertips through the throng of feet.

"Uh, that thing…" Mr. Incredible found himself at a loss for words.

"Yes, that was Thing," Herman said, smiling. "He's very handy to have around." The large green man began laughing at his bad pun, but seemed somewhat embarrassed when he realized he was the only one laughing. After lining up with the ball, Munster took a mighty swing, sending the golf ball flying high up over the attacking drones. Herman burst out laughing. "Oh boy! Oh boy! Oh Boy! Did you see that stroke?" A moment later he spotted something. "Ah, I see two of the other players. I should really go check in with them. If you see my partner Gomez, tell him we are over there. Now excuse me. Good luck with your battle." He turned and put his golf club in his golf bag before picking it up.

Pumyra turned to Mr. Incredible. "What type of Human is that exactly? He gives off a vibe that has all the hairs of my back standing on end."

"Uh, I'm not sure he's considered a Human anymore." He stared after the large green-skinned man. "I think he's a kind of walking dead person. I've fought a few here and there, but I try to leave that kind of thing to the magic-based heroes because they are better equipped to handle the dead and that some animated dead have a very infectious bite. But all that aside, the really weird thing is that I've never heard of one so polite or…well, jolly."

As Herman left, people cleared out of his way, leaving confused and wary people in his wake who were saving their strength for fighting off the Borg.

"Hi, guys," Herman said. "Did you see that last shot I just made?"

"I'M AFRAID NOT," spoke a tall, gaunt figure wrapped in a dark cloak. "RINCEWIND WAS JUST EXPLAINING HOW HE HAD GOTTEN LOST WHILE LOOKING FOR HIS GOLF BALL."

Rincewind, a ragtag looking skinny wizard with a wispy beard, gave a sheepish toothy grin, shrugged. "These things happen, right?"

"You should take a mulligan. I just did, too," Herman said, trying to be supportive.

"Er, I guess I could," admitted Rincewind, wondering what a mulligan was, "but I seem to have lost my sticks as well."

"THEY ARE CALLED GOLF CLUBS," informed the bony man.

"Here," Herman said, reaching into his golf bag. "You can use one of mine."

"Pardon me for interrupting," said a dark-haired man standing next to Rincewind. "But have you seen any children around here? I'm looking for my son and daughter." His eyes darted around, searching through the people trying to push back the attacking Borg drones. While Rick Marshall had only spent a two years in this micro-universe previously, he had never seen so many people here before or so much chaos.

"Oh dear." Herman scratched his chin. "Unsupervised children can get into so much trouble. I understand your concern. I'm a father, myself."

"Really?" Rick managed to say, his imagination trying to formulate what a child of Herman's would look like. "Well, anyway, Rincewind told me he saw some children here, and I have to see if they are mine. But even if they aren't Holly and Will, there shouldn't be any children in a battlefield. Someone should have tried to get them out of here to some place safe."

"PARDON ME. HOLD THAT THOUGHT FOR A MOMENT." The dark cloaked man tapped a small hourglass he had taken out from a pocket with his bony finger.

Rincewind brought a trembling hand up to his wispy beard. "Um, is that…would that happen to-" He paused only long enough to swallow a lump in his throat. "Is that an hourglass for a wizard?"

"YES," answered Death. Noticing the curiosity in his companions faces, he decided to explain. "AS THE INCARNATION OF DEATH, ONE OF MY RESPONSIBILITIES IS TO BE PRESENT AT EVERY WIZARD'S DEATH."

Rincewind's eyes grew wide with alarm. "M-m-meaning me!" He willed his feet to move but they seemed to be frozen in place. "You've been wrong before!" declared the frightened wizard, his eyes staring at the dwindling sands in the hourglass.

The hooded form nodded. "BUT THIS TIME I AM CERTAIN." Putting the hourglass away, Death grasped his scythe firmly.

An explosion at the wall threw debris and bodies everywhere. Death swung with his magically lethal scythe. Rincewind let out a shrill scream.

Despite the panic, with the help of the telepaths directing people, Sun Emperor and Radiation Roy were able to melt and burn away most of the nearest drones before being stunned themselves. The villainess Thorn made use of her incredibly large thorny vines to form a barrier, but the drones, having experienced her vines before, began to burn them down as fast as she grew them. Destro and the Baroness tossed in a few grenades to slow down the drones but the drones continued to push forward, keeping their personal force fields in place to protect them from the majority of the harm.

"Help! Help!"

Rick heard the cries off to his left. He coughed as he tried picking himself off the ground. A sharp pain alerted him to something wrong with his left leg. Sitting up and brushing off some of the dust, he noted a small blood stain on his leg. A quick exam showed that it was only a superficial wound. Looking around he could see others scrambling to stop the Borg from gaining any more ground. Finally the screaming began to register. Crawling through the rubble, he came upon Rincewind buried under a body.

"Help!"

"Calm down," Rick said. Confirming that the body on top of Rincewind was actually dead, Rick heaved it over to the side. "Are you hurt?"

"Hurt? Of course not! You don't hurt when you're dead!" Rincewind shouted, jumping to his feet.

"You're not dead." Rick quickly pulled him back down. "But you might soon become so if you don't keep down."

"I'm not dead?" The wizard from Ankh-Morpork carefully considered this new information. "But he said…"

"I SAID A WIZARD WAS ABOUT TO DIE," spoke Death. "AND HE DID."

Rincewind glanced to the body next to him. The man was dressed in all black with a large black top hat next to his head. "He's a wizard?"

"HE WAS WILLIAM I. ZARD OTHERWISE KNOWN AS 'THE WIZARD'. HE USED HIS POWERS FOR EVIL AND PERSONAL GAIN ON A PARALLEL UNIVERSE. HE WAS ACTUALLY CALLED A SUPER-VILLAIN AND OFTEN WAS A MEMBER OF GROUPS OF SUPER-VILLAINS SUCH AS THE INJUSTICE SOCIETY AND THE SECRET SOCIETY OF SUPER-VILLAINS."

"Heh! So it was him all along and not me."

"SO IT WOULD SEEM."

Meanwhile the Wizard was trying to pick up his wand from where it lay on the ground, but his fingers kept going through the magical instrument. "Damnation! What kind of trick is this? What did they do to me?"

"There is nothing wrong with you," spoke a voice behind him.

Turning around, the Wizard recognized the speaker as one of Batman and Hawkman's regular foes, the Gentleman Ghost. "What's happened now?"

"It's quite simple, really," said the Gentleman Ghost, who appeared in an 18th century white suit complete with a top hat and monocle, but his face appeared to be invisible. "You're dead, like me."

He only had a moments confusion before comprehension showed upon his face. "So now what? Do we just follow him?" he asked, pointing towards Death.

"He's just the hatchet man, if you will pardon the pun. Where we go after this…, I really can't say as I've been putting it off to deal with unfinished business."

"But you interact with the living." His thoughts raced as he tried to take it all in. "How can I do that?"

"Mine was special circumstances. With you, I don't know. But since you were a wizard, you might be able to stay and participate with the living, but in a more limited fashion."

The Wizard looked down at his wand regretfully, not wanting to leave it behind.

Meanwhile, unaware of the spiritual conversation, Herman sat up. "That was an explosion worthy of Grandpa!" He glanced around. "Gee, I wonder where he is?"

Rick Marshall hurried over. "I can't believe I'm going to ask this, but …are you okay?"

"Oh, fine. Just got the wind knocked out of me."

"I think we should probably get you over to that trauma station over there."

"I'm fine really."

"Maybe you should look at your right hand."

"Huh?" He automatically lifted his right arm. "That's strange. My hand is missing." His eyes widened. "My hand is missing! Lily! Grandpa! Eddie!"

"Try and remain calm," Rick said. "Come on; get up."

Once on his feet, Herman stumbled forward toward where Rick led. Finally, Sivana, Jr. showed them a place near in the trauma area next a big rock that Herman could recline against.

"Geez, normally I wouldn't recommend plastic surgery in the middle of a battle zone," Sivana Jr. stated. "But in your case I'll make an exception."

"Doctor?" Rick said. "We're not here about plastic surgery, (as hard as that is to believe), it's his hand."

The junior Sivana managed to take his eyes off Herman's disfigured face and look where Rick indicated. "Ah, yes, well, I guess the first thing we should do is stop the bleeding. Say, that's not blood, is it?"

Rick grimaced, as he looked at the black liquid dripping out from the stump of Herman's hand. "You should still stop the…leaking."

"I think I'm going to faint," Herman murmured, turning his head away. "Oh, what is Lily going to say?"

"Hmm," contemplated Sivana, Jr. as he took a belt from one of the dead ninjas. "I think it might be some type of ichor." Using the belt, he began to make a tourniquet. "It's not my field, but I can at least stop the loss of fluids until someone that is more versed in that area of expertise can lend a hand." He chuckled at his bad pun. "Maybe they can even reattach it."

Rick tried to smile reassuringly to Herman. "I looked around but I didn't see it anywhere. Sorry."

"Herman, old man!" exclaimed someone behind them. "Are you worn out all ready? We are only halfway through the course."

"Gomez?" Herman glanced over to where his friend Gomez Addams was coming over with his butler Lurch totting his golf bag. "I'm afraid I won't be able to continue with our game." He indicated the stump where his right hand used to be.

"That would get you quite the handicap," Gomez commented as he took a smoking cigar out of his inner coat jacket pocket and began puffing on it. "Can't they just reattach it?"

"Reattach it?" Rick found himself speaking up. "His hand was just blown off! I'm surprised he's even conscious!"

Gomez shook his head in amusement. "An excitable fellow, isn't he? But, not to worry, Munster. I've got just the thing." He turned to the crowd and whistled.

A startled scream came from the crowd at the wall. Moments later a severed hand came scampering towards them on it's fingertips.

Sivana, Jr. grabbed Rick by the sleeve. "Do you see what I see?" Rick only managed to nodded in response. "Do you think it's just magic or some type of strange scientific experiment? Hee! Hee! Whatever it is, it's alive! It's alive!"

"Ah, Thing!" Gomez knelt down next to the reanimated severed hand. "Herman seems to have gotten himself in a fix and can't continue his game without you."

Thing made a slight gesture.

"What happened to him?" Gomez interpreted. Mr. Addams looked back at Herman. "Why don't you show him, Munster?"

Herman, embarrassed and in pain, lifted his stump of an arm up.

Thing showed surprise. And then reluctance.

"It would only be temporary," insisted Gomez. "We wouldn't want you growing attached to Herman. I know what a free spirit you are."

After a moments deliberation, Thing finally gave the okay sign.

"Fantastic!" Gomez turned to Sivana, Jr. "Now if you can just attach Thing to Munster's arm, then we can get back to our game."

"Me?" Sivana, Jr. "Uh, I guess I could try, but I'm not sure I could under these conditions." He ducked down as a nearby explosion showered them with bits of rock.

"Herman, what in the seven layers of hell are you doing here?"

"Grandpa?"

Herman's father-in-law approached, brushing dust from the battle off his suit. "This whole place is about to take a turn worse than the Alamo."

"Grandpa." Herman lifted up his stump. "Ouchie."

"Herman, you're falling to pieces at a time like this?"

"Dracula, old man," Gomez through an arm over the other man's shoulder. "Do you think you can attach Thing to Herman's arm long enough for him to finish playing this round? I'd really hate to stop the most exciting game of my life unless we absolutely have to."

"Where's his hand? I could reattach it if there isn't much damage. I've done it a few times already." He chuckled. "I guess you could say I'm an old hand at it."

Herman, however, could not see any humor in the situation. "It's lost," Herman pouted. "Perhaps forever."

"Nonsense," Gomez said, patting him on the shoulder. "When things calm down a little here, we'll send in the kids to look around the corpses and debris for it. It'll be a kind of treasure hunt for them. You wouldn't believe how giddy Pugsley gets digging thru cadavers. And if you give Wednesday a pair of bolt cutters she will be cracking ribs happier and more thoroughly than someone trying to get at the meat in the hard to get spots of their lobster meal. Besides, if worse comes to worst, and we can't find your hand, we'll just look among the corpses strewn around here for a hand-me-down."

Grandpa took Herman's arm and checked the damage. "Well, I should be able to get Thing on in just a few minutes. How that will affect your game, I really couldn't guess."

"Really? You're going to attach it right now?" Sivana, Jr. listened with rapt attention. "You don't mind if I watch? I really don't get a chance to examine much connected to the mystical arts. My father kind of frowns on it."

"By all means." Grandpa smiled as he brought out a small tool kit he kept tucked in his cap for emergencies.

Rick shook his head, but then spotted a familiar patch of blonde hair. "Holly?" He broke away at a run, brushing past people as he crossed into the trauma center. "Holly!"

A blonde teenage girl looked up from where she had been sitting with a younger girl, True. "Dad?" She turned to where her brother Will was helping a wounded man back from a small makeshift latrine that had been made with two blankets. "Will! It's dad! He's here!"

Will almost dropped Lt. Paul Wang on to the ground. But once Wang was lying down, Will hurried away without even giving an apology. "Dad!"

Holly pulled her father in for a deep hug. "Oh, we missed you so much!"

Will joined in the hug, and even though he squeezed tightly, his sister didn't complain of being squished. "How'd you get back? We thought you were lost forever."

Rick blinked back tears. "I almost gave up hope of ever seeing you again."

"Rick!" came another familiar voice.

Rick looked up in surprise to see his brother approaching. "Jack? What- how did you get here?"

Jack laughed and pulled his brother in for a bear-hug. "I'd been out searching for any sign of you and the kids. I knew the route you were supposed to take. I went down it week after week looking-"

"I know," Rick acknowledged. "I talked to your neighbors- the Wilsons."

"So you made it back home?" interrupted Will.

"Did you really, dad?" Holly looked up, wide-eyed.

"Yes, I did." He looked at his two children, marveling at the sight of them. "Look at you two. You are growing so fast. And Holly, you look so much like your mother."

"I've been making sure they have been well fed," Jack said.

Rick smiled back at his brother. "So how soon after I left did you show up here?"

"From what the kids have told me, the two events must have coincided at the exact same time."

Rick's face stiffened. "That doesn't sound very accidental, does it?"

Jack made the connection almost as fast as Rick. "You think that someone wanted you out of the picture. But they needed someone here to keep the kids safe."

"And I think I know who." Rick nodded to where Enik stood with Professor Xavier.

**AUTHOR's NOTES: **

_I'm going to be moving soon so I wanted to get this out as soon as possible. Please forgive any mistakes._

_I have been working on trying to tie up some loose ends. One of which is the upcoming Lore vs. Predator confrontation. I had been planning for Death to kill the Earth-2 villain, the Wizard, instead of Rincewind for quite a while._

_I've also been enjoying the Munsters & Addams golf game through the battlefield. Perhaps I've been enjoying it too much, but oh well._

_I used to be a big fan of the original Land of the Lost series, so I was glad to have a chance to reunite Will and Holly with their father, Rick. In the first two seasons of the show, Rick led Will and Holly through adventures in the Land of the Lost while trying to find a way back home. In the beginning of season 3, Rick was tinkering in one of the pylons and was suddenly sucked through a time-portal. The two kids were left alone, but they soon find their uncle Jack, who quickly takes over the parental role. There was no season 4 so everything was left rather incomplete._

**In Order Of Appearance:**

Sela – from Star Trek: The Next Generation

Lore – from Star Trek: The Next Generation

Yautja – from the movie Predator

Data – from Star Trek: The Next Generation (_mentioned only_)

Jake Foley – from Jake 2.0

Broadway – from the cartoon Gargoyles

Rag Doll – from DC Comics

Solomon Grundy – from DC Comics

Professor Xavier – from Marvel/movies

Professor – from Doctor Who (_mentioned only_)

Mr. Incredible – from the movie The Incredibles

Pumyra – from the cartoon ThunderCats

Dash – from the movie The Incredibles

Johnny Quick – from DC Comics

Zoom – from the movie Zoom (_mentioned only_)

Elastic Girl – from the movie The Incredibles (_mentioned only_)

Herman Munster – from The Munsters

Gomez Addams – from The Addams Family

Garguax – from DC Comics

Thing/Ben Grimm – from Marvel/movies (_mentioned only_)

Thing – from The Addams Family

Death – from the book series Discworld

Rincewind – from the book series Discworld

Rick Marshall – from the TV series The Land Of The Lost

Wizard – from DC Comics

Sun Emperor – from DC Comics

Radiation Roy – from DC Comics

Thorn – from DC Comics

Destro – from G.I. Joe

Baroness – from G.I. Joe

Gentleman Ghost – from DC Comics

Grandpa/Sam Dracula – from The Munsters

Lily – from The Munsters (_mentioned only_)

Eddie – from The Munsters (_mentioned only_)

Sivana, Jr. – from DC Comics

Lurch – from The Addams Family

Pugsley – from The Addams Family (_mentioned only_)

Wednesday – from The Addams Family (_mentioned only_)

Holly Marshall – from the TV series The Land Of The Lost

True Danziger – from the TV show Earth 2

Will Marshall – from the TV series The Land Of The Lost

Lt. Paul Wang – from Space: Above And Beyond

Jack Marshall – from the TV series The Land Of The Lost


	34. Chapter 34

**A TANGLED WEB 8**

**Chapter 34**

**By Ordinaryguy2**

Disgruntled, Skywarp sat down so that the Constructicon Hook could begin work on repairing some of the damages he had sustained when he crashed due to the Borg shooting off one of his wings.

"I can't believe you all just left me to be salvaged by those cyborg monstrosities."

"We were all fighting for our very existences," offered Rumble, another Decepticon that Hook had done some recent repair work on. "Besides, I doubt anyone saw you crash."

"This might hurt for a few seconds," Hook warned, as he began his work.

"I was here first!" growled Bonecrusher. "You should finish working on me!"

A series of sparks came from where Hook was working on Skywarp. Skywarp tried to jump up, but the smaller Decepticon Rumble pushed him back. "Take it easy, big guy. He's just starting."

"But he hasn't finished with me!"

"Relax," Hook said, diplomatically. "I've done all the major work I can on you here under these conditions. Other than some minor work, there isn't much else I can do here and now. But I will check you over again right after I am finished with Skywarp"

Bonecrusher grumbled, but decided to storm off and test his current stats before he engaged in anymore battles or whining.

"They almost got me, too," muttered Skywarp.

"Will you let it go already?" asked Rumble. "We've all taken some heavy hits today."

Skywarp glanced around noting that the others were standing at the edge of the plateau watching the battles being fought in the distance. Soundwave and another Decepticon stood side by side as they monitored activities, while the canine Decepticon Ravage paced in front of them.

"Sooo…is that really Megatron in Starscream's body or has Starscream just ruptured a power coupling to his central processor?"

"Hey!" Rumble said in a quieter hushed tone. "Do you really want to become scrap today? Okay, I'll give you the fact that Starscream always seemed more overly excited than his circuits could handle. But if you look at his face now, nobody but Megatron can scowl like that."

Hook didn't feel comfortable talking behind Megatron's back, especially when he knew that Soundwave could very well be recording this very conversation to play back to Megatron later. "Rumble, tell Mixmaster that I'll need more of his #7 patching compound right away. I know he'd rather make the #11 compound, but we need something that will harden quicker if we are expected to fight again soon."

"I'm on it!" said the smaller robot, hurrying over to where he last saw Mixmaster and Scavenger.

Megatron regarded the battle against the giant Borg drone made from Giganta and many components from the giant robot Mr. Atom. The large drone seemed to have fought very well against all it's adversaries so far so he looked for any weaknesses he might exploit later if he had to defeat it. The fact that it had survived an encounter with the Constructicons in their Devestator persona was quite remarkable, even more so for the fact that it had also been fighting another giant robot at the same time. Long Haul had described the other robot as five multi-colored lion shaped battle ships that could come together to make a large humanoid shape that was somehow controlled by five Humans within it. Another more recent attacker was that of an enormous ape. But Hook went on to explain that he alleged that the giant ape was somehow being controlled by a small female Human that he carried in one of his hands, the very thought of which Megatron found hard to believe. Yet, incredibly enough, there were two more giant attackers that seemed to rise up and face the giant drone. One was a giant Human male and the other was constantly changing form, yet a third of him was always a Human or animal, a third vegetable, and a third some type of mineral. It was Rumble who had pointed out that the giant man and the Animal-Mineral-Vegetable Man had both been trying to kill each other just a few minutes prior to them joining forces. Now that the Borg were attacking in larger numbers it had only been inevitable that both sides would have to join forces in order to survive.

On the other side of the valley, the smaller heroes and villains were also fighting together against the Borg. He had been surprised at how long they were fairing against the cybernetic attackers, but after a while he realized that some of the heroes and villains had powers he had never conceived of before, and that and that alone was helping them survive.

On top of the next hill, Megatron watched as the space dragon Zok fired beams from it's eyes at some of the drones below, each time with less and less effect. While the dragon had evidently learned to adjust the frequency of it's energy beams in order to keep them effective, the beast was beginning to run out of juice. Megatron had only been in Starscream's body for little while when he had come under attack by the space dragon, who thought he was reinitiating his fight with Starscream. Megatron, even in Starscream's body, turned out to be made of sterner stuff, and left the dragon with a damaged wing on the other hill where the Borg would come for it. The Decepticon leader had even ordered Blitzwing to keep an eye on the dragon so that the beast would not be able to fly away. Trapped, Zok would have to fight for his life, taking many drones with it.

"Tell me, Soundwave, what does-"

"The TARDIS is returning," announced Soundwave.

"Where?" Megatron demanded, no longer interested in what he was going to ask. Vengeance was at hand.

"Among the Borg resistors." The Decepticon pointed down to where the main group of heroes and villains were. A growl rose from Ravage, as well as from Megatron

Megatron fumed. "Very well then. Let's see what the self-proclaimed Master does once he sticks his neck outside his transport."

Black Adam snarled in frustration after bouncing off the giant drone's protective force field yet again. No matter how many times he tried, he never seemed able to breach the force field. While there were over a thousand drones attack them, the giant drone was drawing many of their strongest fighters, leaving the rest of their forces –the weaker and more susceptible- to being overrun by the Borg. If they were going to have a chance to succeed, the Giganta/Mr. Atom drone was going to have to be dismantled. And since the Mr. Atom robot half of the drone came from his parallel universe, he knew it to be not only formidable, but potentially explosive. If the Borg had not removed that aspect of the robot's capabilities, this could very well be a very short battle for all of them.

He had to dodge aside as Bizarro came hurtling past him laughing as he crashed yet again. Taking a moment to just float in midair and reflect on how pathetically worthless most of his comrades were, a shot from one of the drones on the ground stuck him in the face, sending him spinning to the ground below.

A moment later, he pulled himself out of the ground, spitting dirt. "By the sweltering sands of -"

Two super-strong entwined combatants fell over the indignant superhuman Egyptian, knocking his face into the ground yet again. Outraged, he swung blindly, knocking both fighters off of him. "Who dares-"

One of the figures, Baron Blitzkrieg, who was covered from head to toe with yellow armor that was missing in places, was grabbed from behind by his opponent, and then pushed at super-speed straight into Black Adam.

Black Adam was ready for the encounter this time. Focusing his mystical might, he became near to an immovable object. Baron Blitzkrieg crunched between them, gasping in pain as his eyes seemed to almost pop through the eye slots of his metal face mask. Then using his super-speed to step aside, Black Adam reached out to grab a hold of the Borg assailant as he and the baron flew past, letting Baron Blitzkrieg to continue on until he crashed onto the ground.

The former champion of Shazam accessed the flowchart that Hector Hammond had put together and telepathically given them so that everyone could have an idea of who was who and what they were capable. Seeing that the man struggling in his arms was listed only as Ralph Hinkley, Black Adam assumed that the information was incomplete since it did not include his alter ego name, and that some other more vital information would likely be missing, too. But then again, Hector Hammond, didn't use an alias either.

Holding Ralph in a full-Nelson, he noted that the controlled hero was only in the first stages of being a drone. While the Borg nanites could obviously be seen on his face and hands, no other augmentation had been employed on him. The Borg were obviously trying to crush all resistance before processing all of their newly acquired drones. Though how they were able to infect a person that seemed pretty near invulnerable raised other concerns. If they were able to infect and take over Ralph, could they also overwhelm him?

Movement on his left alerted him, and he turned so that Ralph could take the blow from two brawlers. The large Mantis-like alien Zorak had thrown the fully processed drone of the Mad Hatter into Ralph. The Mad Hatter fell down hard to the ground due to the impact. Zorak took advantage of the situation, and used one his upper limbs to thrust it through the Mad Hatter's head, effectively killing him. Zorak looked up at Black Adam, who was still holding the struggling Ralph Hinkley, with something that might have been a smile. "Their body shields let their own kind through."

Black Adam's eyes widened as he realized what the alien insect was saying. Then he used that information. With his powers of flight and super-speed, he pulled Ralph up with him as he circled around the giant combatants looking for an opening. Then, after the Giganta/Mr. Atom drone, managed to blast Giant-Man and the large ape back, Black Adam poured on the super-speed before Ralph could free himself. At the last possible moment, Black Adam pushed Ralph forward. Ralph was propelled through the left side of Giganta's skull and ruptured out of the metal half of Mr. Atom's head. The massive drone teetered for a moment before finally crashing backward dead.

Black Adam grinned evilly as he swooped down and grabbed the dazed gore-covered Ralph drone, and quickly brought him over into the protective wards made by Wotan, to keep the Ralph free from the Collective influence of the Borg while Wotan and his fellow mad scientists freed him completely from Borg influence. Seeing his sometime ally Dr. Sivana working on reclaiming some of the drones, Black Adam threw Ralph down hard onto the ground right behind the mad scientist causing him to jump in fear and surprise; Black Adam laughed.

Sivana swatted away the helping hands of his son, Sivana Jr, and then shouted up at the super powered Egyptian. "Hold off sending anymore drones to reclaim. We're swamped with more than we can handle already."

Flying back out into the field of battle, the dark marvel groaned in annoyance to see one of the Borg controlled Horde troopers administering nano-probes to the battered form of Baron Blitzkrieg. Knowing that his options we limited, he made a decision. Black Adam swooped down fast, landing with his feet thereby crushing the super powered Nazi's skull before he could become a more difficult threat to handle. Then, he turned and swatted the Horde Trooper away before it could turn on him. The Horde Trooper, not a fully processed drone, crumpled like an aluminum can and then crashed into a older Human female drone.

Black Adam took a few moments to wipe off the blood and brain matter from his feet, and then scouted around for his next target. Then suddenly his eyes were blinded by a series of bright lights that were flashing in a strobe-like pattern. With all the willpower he could muster, he shook off the Borg hypnotic attack and flew up and away at super speed in order to give himself a chance to shake off the effects.

Meanwhile, Dr. Sven Larsen, otherwise known as the Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man, slumped over and took a few deep breaths. In the last couple of hours he had been stunned, blasted and battered over and over. Even when he faced his adversary, the Chief's Doom Patrol, he had never come against such ferocity. The battles never lasted so long either. He did find some similarities between the Doom Patrol and the Borg. Robotman's brain being housed in a humanoid robot body was the easiest comparison. The massive Giganta drone reminded him of Elasti-Girl's ability to grow to gigantic size. And Negative Man's energy body could stun people similar to how the Borg did for capturing new potential drones. But even thought he hated the Chief and his Doom Patrol misfits, he wished they were here to fight at his side. Even the obnoxious shape changing Beast Boy and his step-father, Mento, would be a welcome sight about now.

It was the screaming that made him raise his head. His body was still gigantic and was part of his superpowers that let him be part animal, part vegetable and part mineral all at the same time on different parts of his body. Currently he had the head of a longhorn bull, the right side of his body was that of an elm tree, and the left side of his body was iron, so when he looked for whoever was screaming he had to look down to the ground.

There, near his hip, stood Princess Allura in the colorful Voltron flight uniform waving her hands in the air in the attempt to get his attention.

"What is it now?" he asked, annoyed, his breathing still a little ragged from all his exertions.

"Look!" she yelled, pointing across the valley that was rather torn up by all the fighting.

There lay Giant-Man, one of A-V-M Man's main combatants since arriving in this unusual land, was convulsing on the ground with the red Voltron lion-ship attached to his back. The red ship had a large tube distended from it's mouth that went right into the upper part of Giant-Man's back at his spine.

"What the hell…?" The sight of the stabbing made his stomach, which was partially full of tree sap, queasy.

"The Borg have taken over one of my teammate's vessel! They are using it to turn Giant-Man into a drone!"

"Oh great," Sven muttered. "I get to fight with him again. Damn it!" He began augmenting his form, letting the lower part of his body from the waist down to morph into that on a silverback ape, his head and chest reverted to his natural Human shape but took on the crystalline features of a diamond, while his arms took on the form of some rather thick vines that he had seen attacking people in the jungle.

After getting up and taking a few steps forward, A-V-M Man extended his vine-like arms forward using them to wrap around Giant-Man and his lion ship on his back. "Oh, if only it would be this easy," Sven muttered to himself, then flinching as a smaller drone began shooting him. Fortunately for him, his diamond exterior proved to be resilient enough to protect him long enough for one of his fellow villains, Tri-Klops, to use his optical vision powers to incapacitate his attacker. Having a second chance, Sven tightened his grip even as Giant-Man started to try to sit up, his face vacant of emotion.

Sometime during the smaller drone's attack, the red lion vessel had disengaged itself from Giant-Man. The red lion vessel was covered by a thin layer of grayish capillaries that Sven hadn't even noticed until it started charging toward him.

_Don't move or let go of Giant-Man!_ spoke a voice in his head.

He was about to ask the voice in his head if it was crazy, but then for a second thought he might be going crazy. His eyes widened when the giant metal lion-shaped vessel was almost on top of him.

Then, at the last possible moment, a blur of blue intercepted the attacking ship-drone, and both figures were knocked to the side, the impact making a long deep trench, toward where the Borg were coming from. Despite himself, A-V-M Man's jaw dropped where a somewhat familiar figure popped up from the far end of the trench.

_That's not Superman, you dolt!_ said the voice in his head. _That's Ultraman, Superman's Earth-3 counterpart._

"Who are you?" Despite his rather amazing abilities, Sven had never interacted much with the villainous superhuman community, or even faced any other heroes other than the Doom Patrol, so telepathic communication was new and frighteningly invasive to him.

_My name is Brain Wave. I'm from Earth-2 so you may have not heard of me._

"Well, what are you doing in my head?"

_It's Luthor's idea. My Luther from Earth-2, not the Earth-1 Luthor. He reasoned that the Borg function so efficiently because they are in constant communication with each other. So we are going to try use the telepaths we have available to coordinate aid, attacks and defensive measures. That's how Tri-Klops and Ultraman were able to keep you from being overwhelmed._

"Well, can one of them help me put this big boy down now?"

_Tri-Klops is busy, but Ultraman should-_

A bright red light flashed brightly nearby, and A-V-M Man had to fight to keep his hold on Giant-Man. Darkening some of the crystals that were his eyes, he could see that Ultraman was the focus of the bright light, under which he was writhing in pain. The source of the light came from another large robot that he hadn't seen on the battlefield before. It wasn't as big as the Giganta/Mr. Atom drone, but it was about two-thirds it's size but evidently powerful enough to take down someone as powerful as Superman. Without meaning to do so, Sven's mind accessed the identity flowchart that Hector Hammond had put in his brain earlier. Instantly, he now recognized the robot as one of the Decepticons called Reflector, a gestalt entity comprising three separate robots –SpyGlass, Spectro and ViewFinder– which come together to form one being.

"Brain Wave, are you seeing this?" But he heard nothing from the telepathic villain who was probably trying to coordinate an effort to save Ultraman. And then he felt a tugging on his vine-like arms. Giant-Man had evidently used the distraction to free his arms and was now pulling Sven towards him.

The Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man tried changing the materials of which he was composed, but was surprised when he realized that he could. He was stuck in the shape he was now in. He tried to turn his arms to mercury and slip through Giant-Man's fingers but then noticed that the new drone was sending a low-level electrical current through his body which evidently interfered with Sven's ability to change shape.

"A little help here!" he shouted with a hint of panic. Glancing around, he could see a green lion vessel along with a green one smashed into the side of a nearby hill. The giant ape named Kong had already limped off with his fur still smoldering in search of a cool body of water in order to cool his many wounds as well as his thirst. No one else seemed to be around.

"Need a hand?" said a voice. A man in a red outfit with a white metal helmet seemed to appear out of nowhere.

"If you can help, sure. But if you can't, find someone who can. Fast!"

"I wanted to test this more in the lab, but here goes nothing!"

The costumed man touched a dial on his belt and then seemed to grow and grow.

Not seeing the man of his mental list, he realized that this must be one of the heroes that had only recently become their allies. Sven asked, "Who are you?"

The other man tackled the Borg controlled Giant-Man to the ground. Managing to pin him to the ground, he looked up with a grin at Sven. "I normally go around with the alias Ant-Man, but if this works out, I may have to consider changing it to Giant-Man, because I have to say I love the view from up here."

The A-V-M Man walked over. Whatever the drone was doing to keep him from changing forms, it had also taken away the motility of his vine-like limbs, so he managed to sit down in next to Giant-Man and the giant Ant-Man and began to use his gorilla feet to untangle his vine-like arms from around their captive.

"Pardon me for not understanding, but shouldn't we be keeping him tied up?" inquired Ant-Man.

"He's doing something that-"

Just then Giant-Man managed to push up and break free from the Ant-Man. A-V-M Man reached over with his ape-like feet, grabbing for Giant-Man's throat, but Giant-Man managed to get a hold of his feet instead.

This fight was not turning out very well at all.

**AUTHOR's NOTES: **

_There is a lot going on in this chapter. I wanted to focus a chapter on what the villains were going through. I had planned on this chapter being longer but I wanted to post it before the New Year._

_Now I only hinted at this but Black Adam was blinded by the Borg controlled Reflector, one of the lesser known Decepticons. Also, Reflector was shinning red solar light onto Ultraman, which would deplete most, if not all, of his super powers._

**In Order Of Appearance:**

Skywarp – from the cartoon series Transformers

Hook – from the cartoon series Transformers

Borg – from Star Trek: The Next Generation

Rumble – from the cartoon series Transformers

Bonecrusher – from the cartoon series Transformers

Soundwave – from the cartoon series Transformers

Ravage – from the cartoon series Transformers

Megatron – from the cartoon series Transformers

Starscream – from the cartoon series Transformers

Mixmaster – from the cartoon series Transformers

Scavenger – from the cartoon series Transformers

Giganta – from DC Comics

Mr. Atom – from DC Comics

Long Haul – from the cartoon series Transformers

Voltron – from the cartoon series Voltron

King Kong – from movies

Giant-Man – from the movie Sky High

Animal-Mineral-Vegetable Man – from DC Comics

Zok – from the cartoon The Herculoids

Blitzwing – from the cartoon series Transformers

Master – from the TV show Doctor Who

Black Adam – from DC Comics

Bizarro – from DC Comics

Baron Blitzkrieg – from DC Comics

Ralph Hinkley – from the TV show Greatest American Hero

Shazam – from DC Comics (mentioned only)

Hector Hammond – from DC Comics

Zorak – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Mad Hatter – from DC Comics

Wotan – from DC Comics

Dr. Sivana – from DC Comics

Sivana Jr. – from DC Comics

Horde Trooper – from the cartoon She-Ra

Chief – from DC Comics (mentioned only)

Robotman – from DC Comics (mentioned only)

Elasti-Girl – from DC Comics (mentioned only)

Negative Man – from DC Comics (mentioned only)

Beast Boy – from DC Comics (mentioned only)

Mento – from DC Comics (mentioned only)

Princess Allura – from the cartoon Voltron

Tri-Klops – from the cartoon He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe

Ultraman – from DC Comics

Brain Wave – from DC Comics

Alexei Luthor (Earth-2) – from DC Comics (mentioned only)

Lex Luthor (Earth-1) – from DC Comics (mentioned only)

Reflector (made from 3 robots – SpyGlass, Spectro, ViewFinder)

Ant-Man – from Marvel Comics


	35. Chapter 35

**Part 35**

_Did you not hear me? The others are dead!_

_If they have died, then at least it was in the manner they would have wanted to die_.

The three Yautja peered over the side of the hill at the battles going on below them. The eldest fumed in frustration that his long-time friend refused to show any sign of sense. Instead, he insisted on tracking down and utterly destroying the humanoid machine that had shot off his arm.

The older Yautja gripped the power sword he had claimed as a trophy along with Hordak's skull. Feeling his arthritis as he tightened his grip on the sword's handle, he wondered if he should try to overpower his friend and take over the role of leadership. There were only four of them left. Him and his friend, the young hunter that stood a little back from them, and the earlier wounded young hunter that they had sent back early with one of their dead. Never had he heard of a first hunt going so wrong.

Meanwhile, the youngest of all that had gone on this excursion struggled to stand steady while in the company of his elders. He had been shot five times while eluding the very prey he had tried to kill. The pain of his failure had hurt him even more than the wounds he had received, or at least that is what he tried to tell himself. While it was true that the older hunters had originally been taking him and his peers on their first hunting exercise before they had crashed on this strange land, he was the only one of all his pack-mates to have not collected a trophy. And to add to that shame, he had been wounded by his prey and had only survived by running away. Now, he would do whatever he had to do to restore his sense of honor.

_These cyborg creatures are closing the gap on their prey; soon they will have killed or captured their prey,_ stated the eldest hunter, even though they could all see that. _Their technology is such that they will most likely be able to see through our camouflage fields as well_.

_It wouldn't be the first time that has happened_, spoke their leader. He adjusted his footing again in frustration as he was still not compensating all the time for the missing weight of his lost arm. _But they are not our target. Our target is… __My__ target is the machine that so grievously wounded me. You two can hunt your own prey or watch. It doesn't matter to me_.

The eldest clicked his mandibles in irritation. Their leader – his friend of many hunts – was refusing to see past his own tragedy. The threat of these cyborg creatures had become very plain to him as he watched them continue forward – where some fell, the rest somehow adapted to not meet the same fate – pushing on to certain success: converting their prey into cybernetic beings just like themselves.

_I also have a dispute with some of those down there_, proclaimed the youngest Yautja. He tried to stand straight and tall even though he was still more than a head shorter than the two adults. His vision wavered for a second as a wave of pain rode through his body, but he stood ramrod still before his elders, refusing to acknowledge his weakness, even though he knew that they could each see the blood covered bandages he had used to cover his wounds.

The leader turned and regarded the youngster for a moment and then reached out to him with his remaining arm and took the younger hunter's arm. _Let us go down among them and discover our destiny_.

With a thrill in his heart once again beating in his chest, the young Yautja turned and leapt down the hill to find prey to engage.

_What of the cyborg creatures_? asked the older hunter. _They may be the most dangerous prey here_.

The one-armed Yautja stared at his friend. _They are too slow to be a real threat to us._

"_They are devastating the ranks of some of the most powerful beings we have ever encountered. But you don't want to see it because your mind is only focused on revenge_!

The one-armed hunter growled in warning. _Were you anyone else, I would take that as a challenge to the death_!

_And were you anyone else I wouldn't be trying to convince you with words. These cyborg creatures are_-

_Enough_! He held up his hand to still the dispute. _You have evidently found your prey after all, even as I have found mine_.

The elder Yautja remained mute, not wanting to make this moment any worse.

The one-armed hunter turned back to the edge of the hill, and then looked back at his long-time friend. _Good hunt to you_, he said, before jumping over the edge.

_Good hunt to you, my friend_ responded the elder hunter, now all alone.

OoOoOoO

The Master, his hands bound with wire behind him, was pushed out of the doors of the TARDIS, causing him to stumble to his knees. Turning his head, he glared with fury at the American secret agent Tom Sawyer.

"Get up," Sawyer said, with a pistol pointed at the devious time-lord's head.

Behind Sawyer, Ian Chesterton spoke. "You probably shouldn't tick him off any more than you have to."

"You should listen to the man," Sawyer said pointing the gun closer to the evil time-lord's head. "And believe me, after a day like today, I'm not in a very forgiving mood."

"Um," Ian gave Sawyer an uncomfortable look as he came around him. "Actually, I meant that you shouldn't tick him off." With some reluctance, Ian reached down and helped the cruel time-lord to his feet. "I've talked to a few of the Doctor's later companions, and they all agree that the Master always seems to come back with a vengeance time after time, even after death."

"Oh, good! You're back!" said an unusually cheery voice. Coming toward them was the toothy-grinned time-lord from his fourth incarnation wearing a somewhat smoldering fedora hat and multi-colored long scarf that was lightly aflame on one end. "Where did you all head off to?"

"Gallifrey," came the answer from the doorway of the TARDIS. Standing there was the Doctor, the older looking first incarnation flanked by Det. Kate Benson. "At the beginning of it's golden age."

The scarfed Doctor's eyes widened in alarm. "So that's what you were up to," he exclaimed, staring at the glaring Master. "That's extremely forbidden," he chided.

"Who are you to tell me what is forbidden?" spat the Master. "You connected and conspired with numerous incarnations of yourself! An act that also goes against the prime Gallifreyian laws."

"An incident that Rassilon is willing to overlook," commented the Doctor in the doorway of the TARDIS.

"You met Rassilon?" the fourth incarnation said, aghast, like a schoolboy learning that some of his cohorts in a prank had been caught by a very stern principal. Then, remembering himself, hastily batted out the rising flames on his scarf.

"We were politely given a warning," stated the first incarnation. "That, and asked to take out the garbage," he said, indicating the Master with a nod in his direction.

"I was wondering what you two were talking about," replied Det. Benson. "But it looked to me like some of that conversation between you and Rassilon was being done telepathically." She gave the surprised Doctor her prize-winning grin. "I've had to deal with a number of telepathic Links in my line of work. You quickly learn to spot when someone is communicating telepathically. It doesn't matter whether they are Human or Link – they all get that same intense look in their eye."

Seeing that there was a steep hill behind them and a line of defenders stretched out fighting behind a makeshift wall, the Master scanned around for something he can use. When he realized what it was, he smiled. "It looks like you returned us to this pocket microverse too soon. Our two armies have joined forces against the Borg. It would be prudent that you free me before my forces see that you have me bound, and thus undermine the battle at a crucial juncture. "

The Doctor's fourth incarnation made a tsking sound. "There has been a temporary allegiance forged between my forces and those you abandoned. But I don't think you will be receiving any good will from them any time soon." To make his point, Skeletor could be heard screaming at his minions about a thousand yards away and pointing toward the time-lord.

Tom Sawyer, seeing something out of the corner of his eye, cried out, "Incoming!" Reaching over, he grabbed Ian by the collar and pulled him clear and the Doctor's fourth incarnation followed suit, while the Master ducked the other way. Det. Kate Benson pulled the first Doctor back into the confines of the TARDIS with her and slammed the door shut.

A large semi-truck sized boulder slammed into the side of the TARDIS blocking any hopes of egress or entrance and raised clouds of dust. The Master rolled like a cockroach, and jumped to his feet only to trip over the already stunned form of the metallic female Silver Slasher. He came within an inch of impaling his eye on one of her pointed razor-sharp fingers and then realized he could use her fingers to free himself.

As the twelve Decepticons slowed their decent to the ground, few people had time to question what the large robots were doing, those few who did have an opportunity chose to mind their own business. Megatron, now inhabiting Starscream's body cast his gaze around in order to find the time-lord who had destroyed his original form. "Find him!"

Next to Megatron, Soundwave turned his head to the canine-like Decepticon Ravage and sent him a silent burst of instructions. Ravage lowered his head, much like a real dog, and began scouring the area for scent-spores of the Master.

Tom Sawyer was about to shoot in retaliation at the Decepticons when the Doctor reached over pulled his rifle barrel down. "That won't do any good, Mr. Sawyer. We really don't want to have them angry at us, especially when their anger seems to be focused on a much more deserving source."

"Rumble! Blitzwing! Guard the booth! Let no one enter or exit!" At Megatron's command, both Decepticons hurried forward to take positions around the TARDIS.

Skywarp yelped and ducked down as some Borg phaser blasts made it past the defenders' protective barrier. "They're coming to get me!"

"Get up!" Megatron snarled in disgust. "Get up or I'll crush you like a sniveling fleshling!"

Trembling, Skywarp got to his feet. "The Borg almost got me earlier…when I crashed. I-I could have been-"

Megatron backhanded the traumatized Decepticon back so that he bounced off of Mixmaster's frame with a loud clang. While he ruled by intimidation, he could not stand seeing weakness among his ranks.

Then, before anything else could be done, a disturbance arose as the fast flying green-glowing form of Rygel spiraled out of control overhead crashing down in the distance.

Ignoring the distraction, Ravage let out a rumbling growl, leaping after his quarry with Megatron and the others following close behind. When they caught up with him, Ravage was looking for the scent of the Master again near a man who was just sitting up on the ground with a bloody nose.

Megatron grabbed the man by his chest and brought him close to his face. "Where did the Master go?"

Sonar pinched his nose to stop the flow of blood. "He hit me, took one of my sonic guns and ran off that way."

Megatron growled in frustration, tossing Sonar over his shoulder as he went off in pursuit.

Ravage scampered over a pile of broken blue, yellow and red Plastic Men -made from an alien plastic-like material by the obese green-skinned alien Garguax. At the top of the pile, Ravage was struck back by a high-powered sonic discharge. The canine-like Decepticon shook and rolled for almost a minute before being able to stand on it's feet again. By then the other Decepticons had caught up with Ravage. Megatron, Skywarp and Soundwave circled around the pile of Plastic Men on the left while Scrapper led the other Constructicons around the right. Ravage, being stubborn, charged over the top again.

On the other side they found Garguax on his hands and knees fumbling with scattered tools and parts from various Plastic Men as he made a desperate attempt to repair his almost obliterated android army.

"Where did the Master go?" demanded Megatron.

Garguax look up in fear and confusion. "He took some of my tools! Tools that I need to fix my Plastic Men! If I can't repair them, they won't be able to protect me! I can't fight the Borg by myself! You have to make the Master give me back my tools!" Garguax cried out in growing hysterics.

Megatron stormed on after the direction Ravage led them. When they came to the still form of the giant creature known as Validus, they saw a man in a dark suit and a shorter creature covered with long hair wearing a small hat and sunglasses standing on the strange beast's chest. The man seemed to be trying to line up to take a shot with his golf club while the hairier one appeared to be giving him advice.

"Just a moment," said Gomez Addams, glancing up at them. "I just need a clear shot and then you can go." He was trying to keep his balance in tune with Validus' breathing while trying to line up to take a shot on a rolling golf ball.

Megatron ignored the man, stomping after Ravage.

Gomez threw his hands up in exasperation. "Or I can wait to take the shot." He shook his head. "Some people have no respect for a man's game," he grumbled to Cousin Itt who agreed.

"Hey, Gomez," came a cry from someone on the ground. Gomez leaned over to the side of Validus to look down at the shinny bald head of Fester. "What's with the giant robots running around?" asked Fester.

Gomez shrugged. "It's hard to tell with robots. They aren't very good at expressing themselves. Of course, that sour looking one in the front is the exception of the rule."

Fester smiled. "I was just wondering if they were looking for that man that can tearing through here a minute ago. Because if they are, then they missed him."

"You needn't worry. They seem to be coming back."

Megatron was storming back the way he had come. Somehow the Master had managed to create a false trail, most likely to double back. But with the steep hill on one side and an intense battle being fought on the other side, it made the evil time-lord's options very limited. When you also consider that Rumble and Blitzwing were guarding the area around the TARDIS, then the Master had to be nearby.

"He has to be here somewhere," muttered Bonecrusher as he scanned the line of villains working to stop the Borg advance. The Constructicon was tired and frustrated of watching everyone else fight; even as incredible as many of the participants were, he wanted to be the one doing the bashing. He had the ability to alter his mechanized frame into the shape of a bulldozer, which mirrored his personality and appetite for destruction.

Scavenger, another one of the evil Constructicons who could transform his robotic form into that of excavator, nodded in agreement. "Once we find the Master and do away with him, then we-, I mean, Megatron will be in charge. I'm sure he can do a much better job of destroying these Borg things once and for all."

"I suppose," responded Bonecrusher. "He can't do much of a worse job, that's for-" A golf ball ricocheted off of his chest plate startling both of them.

"It's that infernal Human hitting balls with sticks!"

"I think it's a game they play, called baseball or hockey or something," Scavenger chortled in amusement.

Having his dignity injured, Bonecrusher decided it was time to live up to his name. "Well, it's definitely game over for him because now I'm going to pulverize that Human!" he exclaimed, rushing forward.

An incredible charge of electricity knocked both of the Constructicons head over heels, crashing into compatriot Long Haul.

"What now?" growled Megatron. To their amazement, they watched the giant purple juggernaut known as Validus sat up displacing Gomez and Cousin Itt from where they had been standing on his chest.

Fester rushed forward to his kinsmen only to be struck by a high voltage of mental lightning from Validus' exposed brain. But instead of falling down unconscious or dead, he became ecstatic. "Do it again!" As if responding to Fester's request, he was struck with another blast of electrical energy causing him to be slammed back and through the Shadow Thief and into the Sleestak Borg drone that the shadowy villain had been fighting. The bald man sat up and was smoking. After a few coughs, each couch punctuated by a cloud of smoke from his mouth, he said "You know, if I had any hair, it would be standing on end right now" Seeing the Sleestack drone that he had knocked down, Fester reached over to help him up. Before the drone could react, contact with Fester's hand caused a discharge of the electrical energies he had absorbed and effectively electrocuted the drone. "Whoops! Sorry about that. That was my fault."

Meanwhile, Validus had stood up, revealing the Master near his feet operating some type of control box. "Starscream! I don't know what you think you are trying to accomplish with this attack on me. The geis Q2 placed on you still keeps you from actually harming me."

"Sadly, I won't be the one to kill you. But I want you to know that this metal shape before you is no longer Starscream."

The Master instantly recognized that voice coming from Starscream's body. "Megatron! But how… I destroyed you!"

"I survived," snarled Megatron. "By luck and sheer determination, I survived so that I could watch you killed before me!"

"Well, then," said the Master, "as vindictive as I know you can be, I should do away with you again right away." He turned to Validus and pressed a few buttons on the remote he held in his hand. "Validus! Destroy Megatron and any who stand with him!"

As Validus began to lumber forward, the Decepticons began to rain a shower of energy beams at him, too little affect. Several of the villains fight on the line to keep the Borg out were turning to see what was going on, wondering if it was another Borg attack or some in-house fighting being conducted in very poor timing.

Megatron continued firing at Validus trying to find a weak spot. "Scrapper, we need Devastator!"

"Right away!" responded the leader of the Constructicons. "Constructicons, transform!"

As Scrapper's form shifted, he took his place to become Devastator's right leg, while Mixmaster became the left leg. Long Haul flew into position and connected to become the lower torso of the massive robot. Hook settled into place to become the head and shoulders of the giant robot. Bonecrusher turned into Devastator's left arm while Scavenger became the right arm.

Devastator charged forward and began to grapple with the dim-witted Validus.

"Get him clear of here!" hollered Megatron.

In response, Devastator began to rise up into the air, hauling Validus away with him.

The Master was finally trapped with Soundwave on one side, Megatron on another, and Skywarp behind him. Still, with confidence he brought out Sonar's sonic gun, which the Master had taken a few seconds to tweak. "You seem to forget; I can harm you, but you cannot harm me."

Megatron smiled evilly. "I don't have to." With that said, Megatron transformed into Starscream's F-15 jet shape and the pilot compartment opened up. General Martok stood up from the compartment and had his phaser trained on the Master before the evil time-lord realized what was happening.

OoOoOoO

Skeletor fumed. The time-lord calling himself the Master had finally returned; albeit as a hostage, but he had returned. But the thing Skeletor wanted to do most was to strangle the coward for bringing him to this damn micro-verse, and he couldn't even do that because of the Borg trying to breach their perimeter. And even then there was that damn geis that had been put on everyone working for the Master that kept them from harming him.

Grizzlor, catching a Borg stun beam to the head, fell listlessly down at Skeletor's feet. "You idiotic throw-rug! We don't have time for you to get shot!" He kicked the downed minion in his butt but got no response. Needing to take his frustration out on something that would have the decency to fall over and die, he fired his own custom made blaster at the closest drones, putting three of them out of commission.

"Skeletor!" cried out Evil-Lyn.

"What is it now?" he snarled, adjusting the energy frequency of his weapon so that it would still be effective against the drones.

"We can't survive these attacks much longer!"

Instead of answering, Skeletor watched the drones as they continued to march forward, heedless of death or injury, always getting stronger and wiser, the perfect army. The only problem was that it wasn't his army. If only he could take over the Borg, he'd be practically invincible. He observed a drone attaching it's tubules to a cyberman that had been mostly buried in the ground from when Giant-Man had fallen on top of it. Another drone was busy examining the remains of the scrap heap that used to be the robot villain Kra, one of the Challenger-Haters, before it had been crushed by the Thing from the Fantastic Four. The nearest drone was working on repairing the android Ace of the Royal Flush Gang, patching up the gaping gashes caused by Wolverine's claws as well as the acidic damage inflicted by the Joker. While the next one was examining broken pieces littering the ground that had once been part of Garguax's Plastic Men. To all accounts, these drones seemed oblivious to the battles their fellow drones were partaking in.

"They are like ants," Skeletor concluded. "They follow simple instructions, changing as the situation dictates, while obtaining information and resources whenever possible."

"My lord Skeletor," began Catra, another of Hordak underlings that had sworn to serve him now that Hordak was dead. "We can't hold them back much longer! We need to-"

"Be silent!" snapped Skeletor, ignoring the plight in her face. He blasted away at the drones he had been watching, but this time he also shot to destroy the robots and androids they had been studying as well. Sure enough, the few Borg drones that hadn't been fighting now all turned to attack the heroes and villains now, too.

"So they have a sweet tooth for unknown technologies," he concluded. "As well as working together to remove a threat."

"Master Skeletor! Master Skeletor! I've got it! I've got it!" The ball of blue flew in on it's small bat-like wings. Imp resembled a humanoid pig that had been shrunk in the wash and dyed blue. He was not popular with the other former members of Hordak's Horde, as his main job had been to spy on the Horde's other members and report any misdeeds to Hordak.

"How many times do I have to tell everyone not to interrupt me when I'm thinking?" he ranted. Imp flew back a few feet in stunned silence, letting Skeletor continue with his line of thought. "Now if I can just wrest control away from their queen-mother-"

"But Master Skeletor, you told me to bring you the ring right away if the flying rodent crashed out of the sky. And I have it right here."

Skeletor turned in fury, about to blast Imp with his power staff. And then he saw the glowing green ring that Imp held out to him. He snatched up the ring, startling the winged, comical fiend.

Originally the ring had been brought there by an Earth-3 evil counterpart of Green Lantern named Power Ring. The cocky villain had underestimated the Borg and had paid the price with his life. The ring had been founded by the Emerald Empress and Star Sapphire who fought over it until it was lost. Then Rygel had discovered in on the ground, empowering the former emperor beyond his dreams as he fought against the Borg. But now the emerald glowing ring was in the hands of Skeletor. He jammed the ring on his boney finger and thrilled at the feel of such raw energy. "Ah ha ha ha ha ha! Now I have the power!"

Need to find master

**AUTHOR's NOTES**

**In Order Of Appearance: **

Yautja – the alien hunters from the movie Predator

Lore (humanoid machine) – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation

Hordak – from the cartoon She-Ra: Princess of Power

The Borg (cyborg creatures) – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation

The Master – from the TV series Doctor Who

Tom Sawyer – from the movie League of Extra-Ordinary Gentlemen

Ian Chesterton – from the TV series Doctor Who

The Doctor (fourth incarnation) – from the TV series Doctor Who

The Doctor (first incarnation) – from the TV series Doctor Who

Det. Kate Benson – from the TV series Special Unit 2

Rassilon – from the TV series Doctor Who

Skeletor – from the cartoon He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe

Silver Slasher – from DC Comics

Megatron / Starscream – from the cartoon series Transformers

Soundwave – from the cartoon series Transformers

Ravage – from the cartoon series Transformers

Rumble – from the cartoon series Transformers

Blitzwing – from the cartoon series Transformers

Skywarp – from the cartoon series Transformers

Mixmaster – from the cartoon series Transformers

Rygel – from the TV series Farscape

Sonar – from DC Comics

Garguax – from DC Comics

Scrapper – from the cartoon series Transformers

Validus – from DC Comics

Gomez Addams – from the TV series The Addams Family

Cousin Itt – from the TV series The Addams Family

Fester – from the TV series The Addams Family

Bonecrusher – from the cartoon series Transformers

Scavenger – from the cartoon series Transformers

Long Haul – from the cartoon series Transformers

Shadow Thief – from DC comics

Sleestak – from the TV series Land of the Lost

Hook – from the cartoon series Transformers

General Martok – from the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Grizzlor – from the cartoon series She-Ra: Princess of Power

Evil-Lyn – from the cartoon series He-Man and the Masters of the Universe

Cyberman – from the TV series Doctor Who

Giant-Man – from the movie Sky High

Kra – from DC Comics

Thing – from the Marvel movie Fantastic Four

Ace – from DC Comics

Wolverine – from the Marvel movie X-Men

Joker – from DC Comics

Cat-ra – from the cartoon series She-Ra: Princess of Power

Imp – from the cartoon series She-Ra: Princess of Power

Green Lantern – from DC Comics

Power Ring – from DC Comics

Emerald Empress – from DC Comics

Star Sapphire – from DC Comics


	36. Chapter 36

A TANGLED WEB 8:

Part 36

By Charles Nelson

The female Changeling snaked her way across the floor, keeping to the edges of the wall to avoid any detection. It had taken a while but she had managed to find a passageway that even the massive Alpha Hirogen could fit through. She had stretched out her body almost a hundred feet so that while she explored ahead, the others could follow the last part of her tail so they wouldn't get separated. It also allowed her to keep tabs on her three remaining teammates. The Captain Kirk from the mirror universe and the Cardassian Gul Dukat were wearing on each others nerves while the Alpha Hirogen was quietly stoic as he took up the rear to make sure they weren't being followed and/or attacked from the rear.

Keeping around a corner, she saw their objective. She took a few moments to make some more observances before forming a second head on the far side of her elongated body.

"It's just ahead," she spoke quietly.

"What do you see?" Dukat asked.

"A variety of solid life forms being converted into cybernetic drones for the Borg." She converted her back head into a flat screen and then converted images she was seeing on the Borg side to the screen.

"I didn't know you could do something like that," Dukat stated.

A much smaller head appeared above the screen. "You'd be surprised at the things I can do that you don't know about."

Dukat frowned.

The Alpha Hirogen pointed to a spot on the screen. "There. Can you enlarge that?"

The alien shapeshifter adjusted a few minute details before bringing up a closer, crisper image.

"That is the Borg queen," identified the Hirogen.

"We can see that," muttered Kirk. "But how do we kill her? Just charge in a shoot her?" He pointed to the numerous worker drones building parts and converting people into drones. "Those things aren't going to let us get in close and easy. They won't let us just leave quietly when she is dead either."

"How can you destroy a drop of water in an ocean?" The changeling looked at each of her remaining compatriots. "We must find a way to separate her from her hive; only then can she truly be destroyed."

"What do you mean?" Kirk clutched the phaser in his hand. "If we kill her she is dead. End of story."

She made sure to keep the contempt out of her tone. "If her body dies, she will still live on, and make another body later. It is not the shell she walks around in right now that is her liability, for she is spread out through what I believe they call the Borg Collective, an amalgamation of all the minds that she collected and reigns over. No, we need to shut this collective consciousness down to isolate her to one body. Then we can eliminate her."

"Do you have a plan?" asked Dukat.

She smiled. "I think I know something that might work."

**OoOoOoO**

"Everyone understand the plan? Any questions?"

A number of the youths grumbled, but no one spoke up.

"All right then. Let's do this." Rick Marshall rubbed his hands together, anxious for this to be over. He had rained holy hell over his brother Jack, Enik and the others for keeping children on the battlefield, even if most of them were not on the fighting lines. In the end he insisted on leading his own two children, Will and Holly, as well as the other minors, to safety. And while a number of the children wanted to stay and fight, many of the other adults agreed with Rick.

Will Stronghold, the son of The Commander and Jetstream, began to ferry people up the side of the steep hill that those facing the Borg had their back to. His first flight up was with the young girl named Sheila who was still unconscious after being stunned by the Borg. Will's girlfriend, Layla, could create and control massive vines to grow and was using them to lift the elder ThunderCat Lynx-O while he cradled the injured forms of the two youngest ThunderCats, WilyKit and WilyKat. Dash from the Incredibles raced up the side of the hill to be the first up as well as to check that there weren't any drones coming in that direction. Uly Adair took the hand of his friend True Danziger and walked into the hill using the ability to travel through earth given to him by the alien Terrans. Pushing through the ground they came up right behind Dash.

"Yipe! You startled me," complained Dash. "For a second there I thought you might be the Underminer."

True brushed dirt out of her hair, raising up a cloud of dust. "I hate traveling that way."

"You could have waited to take a turn coming up with that flying boy," Uly teased, letting the dirt fall off with practiced ease.

"And take a chance getting shot out of the air. No thanks." She blew her nose to clear it of any dirt. "As much as I hate to say it, your way up is safer."

"Hey!" Dash spoke up. "I'm going to check on the perimeter on this side of the hill." He took off in a blur before they could say anything.

"Hey guys." Will flew down next to them with Sheila in his arms. He gently set her down a safe ways from the edge. "Watch her. She seemed like she was starting to stir while we flew up. The breeze probably helped."

"You should probably bring her brother Bobby up next," suggested True. "A familiar face would probably be a good thing. He's the blond kid swinging the big wooden club and wearing a horned barbarian helmet."

"Hey, I'll bring Bobby up!" Uly raced over to side of the hill where Presto had earlier made a slide going down to the bottom. "Be right back!"

"Uly!" But Ulysses Adair was already sliding down to the bottom of the hill. "I don't know how he's lived this long. That was so stupid."

"Yet brave," added Will. "But don't worry. I'm going back down and I'll make sure he heads right back up here."

True blushed a little. "Thank you," she said, suddenly feeling very awkward.

"Gangway!" Layla's large vines gently brought it's leafy platform down near the edge. "Okay, we've landed, sir. If you would just step forward, but be careful the ground is rather uneven."

The elder ThunderCat, Lynx-O, stood up with an injured ThunderCat cub in each arm. Stepping carefully he moved onto the hilltop, making sure of his footing.

Will stepped over to Lynx-O. "Sir, would you like me to help you with one of them?"

Lynx-O shook his head. "I may be blind, boy, but my arms and legs are still strong."

"Yes, sir. I see that, sir." He grimaced for not having realized right away that he was blind. "I'll head down and bring up someone else in a moment. True is here if you think you need anything."

Lynx-O nodded, moved forward a little ways before sitting down, holding the two injured unconscious cubs close.

Layla looked to Will with pity wrapped in helplessness. Unable to do anything else for the ThunderCat, Will picked up Layla and flew back down the hill in order to ferry more people.

True turned to Sheila but the girl was still unconscious and didn't show any signs of waking soon. Biting her lip she walked closer to the sullen Lynx-O wanting to help somehow but knowing there was nothing she could do. "Um, what happened to them, sir?"

Lynx-O turned his head toward her, though his eyes were unseeing. "I'm told that they were climbing on the radio tower when it came crashing down."

She cringed at the thought of such an event. Those two small bodies would have been bounced around horribly, luckily to not have been crushed or torn apart. "Why were they-" She paused, not certain if she should ask.

"Why were they there? I wonder that myself," he said. "The children were all supposed to stay in the TARDIS. But these two snuck out in the rush to take to the field. I'm told that they climbed the remains of the radio tower in order to watch, and then later began using it as a place to sling rocks at our opponents."

Guilt pulled at her heart. How many times had she and Uly run off to do something extremely dangerous without really thinking about what their parents would go through if something happened to them. "Will they be okay?"

"Hopefully."

She bit her lip, unsure of what to say or do. It was a relief when she saw Uly climbing out of the dirt with Bobby in hand.

Bobby let go of Uly's hand to brush the gritty sand off his face, then reaching down to the young unicorn that he held in his other arm. Uni shook his head in agitation to all the dirt in his eyes, ears and nose, while Bobby tried to calm her down while he brushed it off. "How's Sheila?" he asked, worried about his sister.

"Ah, well, that flying kid said she seemed to stir a little from the breeze of coming up here." She looked over as someone else flew up, but it wasn't Will Stronghold.

"Gangway, people. Coming in for a landing." Static Shock, the electrically powered teen hero, flew in for a landing on his hover board, holding his chest with one arm to try keep his broken ribs from moving as much as possible. Riding with him, having wrapped herself around one of his legs, was Cindy Collins, a super strong seven-year-old girl from the team Zoom. "Ok, we're down now, Cindy. Please let go of my leg before you break it."

"I told you my codename is Princess." The little blond girl pouted for all of two seconds before jumping up all smiles. "That was fun. We should do that again sometime. Maybe on a date?"

"Uh, um, well, I kinda already have someone—someone I date, I mean. So, uh…sorry."

The little girl nodded. "It's probably just as well. Zoom would probably say you were too old for me."

"Yeah, there is that, too," Static admitted. He had seen Princess have a tantrum earlier, and he had no desire to be near her when she blew up again.

Princess gave True a short wave before wandering over to get a clear view of the battle below. It was a tall, steep hill which made the people fighting below look about a half of an inch tall, but she could still see too much of all the violence causing her to shudder. "I'm going to be having nightmares of this for a while."

"You're lucky."

Princess turned in surprise to notice a pale, dark-haired girl wearing all black standing next to her. "Where did you come from?"

"From the other side of the hill."

"Is there fighting going on over there?"

"No. All the interesting stuff seems to be happening on this side. We tried looking on the one of the other hills, but the view is much better here."

"We?" asked Princess.

"Yeah, I like the giant creature that is part plant, part metal and part animal," said a boy on the other side of Princess. This boy was somewhat chubby, wearing shorts and a striped T-shirt.

"My favorite was the giant ape. I wonder where he went?" said another boy who was dressed in some kind of old style school uniform all in black. And even though he was dressed very neatly, he still had some kind of wild look to him.

Princess did a quite look around to see if there were any other silently moving children coming to stand next to here.

"I want the giant man with all the grayish veins all over his skin to be the victor," stated the dark-haired girl.

"The guy with the gray veins?" Princess said. "He's called Giant-Man; he used to be one of the good guys until the Borg infected him."

"How tragic," answered the girl. "I hope he wins."

"What's the guy who looks like he's made from three different kinds of things called?" asked the pudgy boy in the striped shirt.

"Uh, the Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man," she answered after checking the mental database that Professor X had put in her head so she would know who not to hit. "He's one of the super-villains."

"Cool!" responded the boy with a smile.

"What about the big ape?" asked the boy in the school uniform. "Where'd he go?"

"Um, I know that he's called Kong, I think, but I don't know where he is. He did receive a lot of nasty burns though." At this news the boy seemed saddened, making Princess feel relieved for a somewhat normal response.

"What about the other giant man?" asked the pudgy boy.

Princess nodded. "The guy with the white helmet? Well, believe it or not his name is Ant-Man. He's one of the super-heroes. I think he tried something radical and tried his shrinking thing in reverse in order to lend a hand with the out of control Giant-Man."

"Obviously," retorted the dark-haired girl.

"Hey! Look down there!" shouted the pudgy boy. "The robots connected back together again into one giant robot!"

"It's fighting that purple monster with the lightning coming out of it's brain!" said the school uniformed boy as he jumped in glee.

"The purple monster is Validus but the robots are all Deceta-Decepo-Desipto." Princess shook her head in frustration at not being able to say the word properly, even though she could see it clearly in her head. "The robots joined together to make a large robot they call Devastator. I don't know why they are fighting each other. They are supposed to be on the same side. At least that's what it says on the chart in my brain."

"Devastator is a cool name," responded the boy in the striped shirt.

"I'm Princess," Cindy said offering her hand to the dark-haired girl.

"Are you really a princess?" asked the girl.

"Princess is my superhero codename."

The girl looked at Cindy's hand for a moment as if she were trying to determine if it was some kind of trick. Finally she reached out to shake her hand. "Wednesday Addams. My brother Pugsley. And this is our friend Eddie Munster."

Pugsley's attention was riveted on the battlefield, but Eddie managed a quick "Hi!"

They watched the battle for a little bit, and then Will and Layla as they brought up Holly Marshall and Diana who was sometimes called Acrobat. Princess looked at her three new companions, and knew there was something different about them that she hadn't quite figured out yet. "So how did you guys come here?"

"My mother and father brought us here for a vacation. My parents own some land in Eerie, Indiana that has a pylon on it. The pylon turned out to be some sort of dimensional doorways to other places," answered Wednesday.

"There's father!" Pugsley exclaimed, pointing down to the struggling figures down below. Mr. Addams was still trying to line up a golf shot down below but the struggling towering frames of the metallic and purple bodies kept moving in the way. Even the smaller Decepticons were busy trying to corner a man and getting away of Gomez Addams golf game. "They keep getting in the way. He'll never get a shot with them there."

"Here," said his sister, passing him a lit stick of dynamite right in front of Princess.

"What are you going to do with that?" asked Princess, eyes wide in alarm.

"Leveling the playing field," responded Pugsley. "Eddie, can I borrow your slingshot?"

"Sure, but watch out for crosswinds. With all the explosions and fire down there, it'll be hard to gauge."

"That's ok. I've had practice."

"You've had practice handling dynamite?" Princess couldn't believe what she was hearing. "But you're kids! Aren't your parents worried you might blow yourselves up?" She felt stupid right after saying that. She was part of a super-team that practiced all sorts of dangerous exercises so they can handle the even more dangerous occurrences without as much risk. Her own parents had handed her over to the military. It wasn't so much that they scared of her, but rather that they were scared for themselves.

"We became better acquainted with how to handle it after the first couple of incidents," answered Wednesday.

"The ice cream truck event was the best teacher," Pugsley grinned. Taking aim with the slingshot, he held the dynamite stick length ways, and used his peripheral vision to gauge how much time was left on the wick. He took the shot. "Fire in the hole!"

The explosion was close enough to Validus and Devastator that they both stumbled to the side falling against the hill. The Decepticons encircling the Master soon discovered that the Master had used the diversion to run out onto the field where the Borg were coming. Megatron shouted orders, sending his Decepticons after the Master. The field mostly cleared, Gomez Addams took his shot sending the golf ball flying, then turned to where his kids were and gave them an enthusiastic thumbs up.

"What are you kids doing playing with explosives?" Diana, the Acrobat from the Dungeons & Dragon team hurried over. "You could have-"

In the struggle between Validus and Devastator, they crashed into the side of the hill again, while a stray burst of mental lightning from Validus brushed across the hillside.

"Whoa!" A top section of the hillside started to collapse causing the four children to stumble and pinwheel their arms as the ground beneath them started to shift.

"Grab on," shouted Diana. Using her magic fighting staff, she made it elongate to where the kids were and braced herself. Holly hurried over to help.

Three of the children grabbed on, but Pugsley reached and missed. Princess managed to grab a hold of the pudgy boy's hand while holding onto the staff with her other hand.

"Can you hold on to him?" asked Eddie.

Princess grinned. "That's easy for me. My superpower is super-strength." With ease she pulled Pugsley up so that he could grab onto the staff himself.

"Wow, you are strong," Pugsley said, impressed.

Diana was trying to keep her staff steady, worried that if she jostled it, one of the four kids would slip and fall. But the weight of the four was beginning to be too much for her to keep in place much longer. "I could use a little help here," she called out.

Devastator slammed Validus against the hill, knocking Diana to her knees. Wednesday slipped free of the staff just as the patch of ground beneath her started to slide down the hill. Another form flew through the air grabbing Wednesday before she landed among the battling monoliths below.

"There now. Don't be afraid," said the teenage girl who was levitating them up to the top of the hill.

"I'm not afraid," Wednesday said, calmly looking around as they went up in the air. "Is this magic?"

"Some would call it that. It is a power I have that allows me to move things with my mind."

"Telekinesis?"

The teenager nodded, in amusement that the girl would know what telekinesis meant.

"You're not from Earth, are you?" asked Wednesday.

The teenage girl blinked in surprise. "How did you know that?"

"I can tell things about people," she said. "I'm Wednesday Addams."

They touched down on top of the hill. "My name is Tia Malone."

"Ok, everyone," Static said, getting everyone's attention. "Let's move away from the edge. With those two monsters battling it out down there it isn't safe."

A roar in the distance was heard over the melee at the bottom of the hill. All eyes turned to a dragon being beset with Borg drones on smaller and less steep hill in the distance.

"That poor beautiful dragon," Wednesday murmured, close to tears.

"That's Zok," Princess informed her, somewhat taking a back at her sudden display of emotions. "He's one of a group of creatures called the Herc-Herc-, oh man! I hate tough words!"

"Called the Herculoids," Tia said, with her eyes closed as her mind reached out across the distance between her and the space dragon. "The Borg damaged one of his wings. There is a tear through the membrane. He had to land. If he tried to fly with a tear like that it would rip all the way across the wing and he'd crash. He can attack with laser beams aimed through his eyes and tail – that's how he's been able to keep the Borg at bay that way – but now he's running low on energy." Her eyes snapped open. "We have to help him."

"Yes," insisted Wednesday, to the surprise of her brother.

"But how?" asked Eddie. He had a pet dragon of his own. If Spot were ever cornered like this he'd want someone to come to his aid.

"Yeah," Bobby said, having joined the group. "It's too far away for us to do anything."

"Hey, you guys all right up here?" asked the rising form of Will Stronghold as he flew up carrying Bobby's friend Hank. "You should probably stay away from the edge in case there are any more landslides. Layla is weaving some vegetation up the hill side to hold it together but she said it would take a few minutes."

"Hey!" shouted Bobby. "They can do it!"

"Do what?" asked Hank, his eye automatically going over to where Sheila's unconscious form lay next to True.

"That dragon over there needs saving," Wednesday said, pointing across the way at Zok. "Please? Princess says it's one of your allies."

Hank watched the sleek dragon lash out with it's tail to bat a closing drone down the hill as the last of it's energy reserves ran out. He frowned, counting the number of drones, testing the wind, and determining the amount of energy it would take for one of his mystic arrows to cover that distance. "I could hit some of them, but I don't think I can get them all. And even if I do, it still leaves the dragon stuck up there, and it marks our location as another threat to the Borg. We'd have to leave here very quickly once we do anything."

Will nervously clenched his fist. He didn't like getting close to the Borg if he didn't have to. "I don't know if I could fly while holding him. Truth is I don't even know if I can lift him. But I'm game if you are," he said, nodding to Hank.

"I can help you lift Zok," Tia volunteered. "I have telekinetic abilities. But I'd have to be close."

"Now hold on everyone," Holly Marshall shouted out. "I've lived here for four years and I have a good idea of what's dangerous. And this screams '_way too dangerous_'. Besides, I know that my dad won't let you do it."

Will Stronghold broke out into a grin. "Then I guess it's a good thing that he's still down at the bottom of the hill with the others."

"Sweet!" Static Shock hopped on his static board, his broken ribs reminding him to not move too much. "I can provide some cover fire."

A fast moving red figure rushed around them before coming to a sudden stop. "Everything's clear down there. Though there are some vines that seem kind of grabby." Dash looked from one face to another. "What's going on up here?"

"A rescue mission!" exclaimed Princess.

"A what?" asked Uly as he climbed out of the dirt with another disheveled passenger from the bottom of the hill.

The teenage girl with Uly shook her hair trying to get rid of the dirt that was embedded in her scalp. "That was a hell of a ride," she said, spitting some of the accumulated dirt from her mouth. "Hey, everyone, I'm Ace. Now who's been playing with explosives up here?"

Two minutes later Static Shock flew off on his static-board with Tia Malone holding tight to him and Will Stronghold flying at his side. As they neared the hill that Zok was struggling on, Will picked up speed and slammed into a number of drones, letting them crash down in the valley below. At that same time, back on the hill they had just left, Hank began to fire a series of mystic energy arrows to hit those drones closest to Zok.

Static Shock swooped in and let Tia Malone drop onto Zok's back, and then proceeded to zap away any and all drones that showed an interest in them.

Sitting on the space dragon's back near his neck, Tia closed her eyes and communed with the great beast. "All right now, my friend Will is going to come back in a second and fly us out of her. I'll be helping to lift you so don't fight us, ok?" The dragon was angry, wounded and tired, but he really wanted an opportunity to escape from here. Tia sensing the dragon's approval, patted his neck. "Good boy."

Will looped around the hill knocking more drones off a ledge that they had built for a better foot path that would get them within range for a clear shot of Zok. He flew in close to the dragon, but froze when Zok reared up.

"Zok," Tia said, with a bit of a scolding in her tone. "We talked about this. If you want to get out of her, you are going to have to let Will pick you up. And don't worry, he's stronger than he looks."

Zok settled down, and Tia gave Will the go ahead sign.

It was awkward, but Will finally managed to get a position where he could lift Zok up, and he could tell that Tia was using her telekinetically powers to steady the dragon. "Here we go!"

Will gritted his teeth and flew for all he was worth. In comparison to before he had powers, it felt as if he were trying to run a relay race with a 300 pound sack on his back. He couldn't imagine how he'd have been able to pull this off if Tia wasn't helping to bear some of the burden.

"We are almost clear!" shouted Static.

An explosion rang out in back of them, and Will almost lost his hold on the dragon.

"Looks like Dash was able to get Ace's Nitro-9 explosives in place!" Static shouted.

"Egh! Ya-yeah," Will managed to say. Sweat was starting to build up on his brow and he was having trouble staying in the air. Principal Powers had speculated that his super-strength was built on a reservoir system, and that once he ran out he'd only have his regular Human strength until his body had a chance to recharge. If he had a gauge to measure how much super-strength he had left, he was sure that it would show that he was running on fumes.

"Will Stronghold! What do you think you are doing?" spoke a voice to his left.

Will managed to turn his head. "Saving…the dragon, …mom."

Will's mother, Josie Stronghold, otherwise known as Jetstream, flew at his side. Will had inherited his abilities of flight from her, even as he had gained his powers of super-strength from his father, whose alter ego was The Commander.

"You were supposed to be getting the children to safety," she said in her stern motherly tone.

"Couldn't…just leave him."

Noting his pained expression, Jetstream suddenly realized how much carrying this dragon to safety was costing him. She tried contacting Professor X to request some aid, but the rampaging battle between Validus and Devastator had caused many of the villains to leave their station fighting at the wall leaving a large part of it unguarded and allowing the Borg to gain ground.

"Damn it!" She ducked under the dragon and pushed up. "Alright, let's do this."

Will was about to tell his mother that he could do this on his own, but realized that might not be true.

After a few more minutes of flight, they touched down on the hill where many of the children and teens gathered around the dragon. Zok sat down, curling his tail underneath him while bringing his injured wing up to inspect. After a few sniffs, he began to lick the wound clean. Tia climbed down from the dragon's back, and then came over to examine the dragon's wounded wing. Zok sported a few other scorch marks on his scaly hide but the wing was his main concern.

"You really gave those drones a run for their money," Tia said as she touched the wing gingerly. Closing her eyes, Tia began to concentrate as she brought her hands over the wound. The torn membrane slowly began to knit itself closed even as those that watched gasped in wonder.

Having finished what she could do, Tia patted Zok's neck gently. "You need to stay out of the air for a few weeks," she informed her patient. "I closed the tear but your body still needs to heal it naturally to strengthen it so that it won't rip open again." She looked down and saw Wednesday at her side. "This is Wednesday. She, more or less, started your rescue mission."

Zok lowered his head, then nuzzled it against Wednesday, much to her delight.

After watching the touching scene, Jetstream patted her son's shoulder and brought him into a shoulder hug while leading him over to where Sheila, True and Lynx-O were. "I want you to take a rest. A superhero has to know their limitations, and I think I can safely say that you have reached yours." Letting him sit down next to a tree. "Now rest and conserve your strength. I have a feeling you may need it later."

"What are you all doing up here?" came a new voice. Rick Marshall, followed by his son, Will Marshall, walked up to the group. "I sent you kids up here to keep you safe. Not so you could risk your lives."

Jetstream flew over to head off anything ugly. "Mr. Marshall, isn't it?"

Rick Marshall wasn't used to seeing flying people; it wasn't a novelty he had come used to. "It is, and you are?"

"Jetstream. I'm surprised you didn't know that. I thought I spotted you down by Professor X. He's been giving everyone a who's who memory database."

Rick frown. "I may have been yelling too much at Enik and my brother Jack for Professor X was able to do that. The fact that my kids, as well as all the other children down there, were in a virtual battle zone..."

"It hadn't been planned that way, Mr. Marshall," she responded. "The kids were supposed to stay away from the fighting. But circumstances and-"

"They should not have been there," Rick said, more sternly. "And once they were there, regardless of how it had happened, someone should have gotten them out of there long before I got here."

Her chin tightened. "We have been rather busy trying to stay alive. You may have noticed."

"What I-"

His argument was interrupted as the ground began to shift under him. A hand came up from the ground and clutched his foot. Rick pulled away in surprise. Uly, making another trip up the hill underground, popped up with a smile. "Sorry," he said. "After that landslide, I wanted to come up further from the hill side."

Tucker Williams, otherwise known as Mega Boy, climbed up out of the ground after him, dirt falling off of him. "That was awesome. I can't believe I just traveled through a whole hill of dirt." He gave his head a hearty shake sending dirt everywhere.

"I like it," Uly said, enjoying showing off what he could do. "True isn't a big fan of it though."

Tucker glanced over to where True was sitting, and broke into a silly grin.

Rick Marshall moved around the two boys to continue his discussion with the superheroine. "You should-"

"Rick Marshall!"

Rick turned to see a hand protruding over the edge of the hill, a head wearing a tall pointed hat with the letters 'W-I-Z-Z-A-R-D' sewn onto it was struggling to show more of itself. The hand grabbed some grass and pulled more of the head into view. "Rick Marshall! You promised you'd get me out of here!"

Rick gave an exasperated sigh. And walked over to pull Rincewind the rest of the way over the edge. "I had to climb in a hurry. Somehow you weren't keeping up for once."

Rincewind tried to straighten up. "My robe!"

"You must have snagged it." He reached around to tug the robe free from whatever had snagged it, only to pull it back at the last second before something snapped at him. Instead Rick grabbed Rincewind by the hand and pulled up his Luggage that had the ends of his robe in it's carpeted maw.

The wizard shrugged sheepishly. "He doesn't want to get very far from me since that last you ran off with me."

The animated baggage seemed to snarl at Rick and then shock clods of dirt that had built up on the hundreds of legs towards him. Rick wasn't sure wasn't sure what to do or say that wouldn't antagonize the thing. He was totally unprepared for two of the children to come over and ask if they could ride on it's back.

Rincewind sighed. "Sure," he said. "As long as he doesn't mind." Eddie Munster and Pugsley quickly climbed on top of the Luggage, which began to happily trot around.

Rick Marshall was not so amused. "That Luggage of your tore apart that underground monster that attacked us and now you just let kids play with it?"

Rincewind shrugged. "Who'd have thought it'd be so good with kids. Besides, it's not as though they are going to break it."

"Dad?"

Rick turned to see his daughter Holly at his side. "Holly, are you alright?"

"Again, dad, I'm still alright."

"Sorry. It's just so good to see you after two years. It's just that everything is so chaotic."

"Where's Will and uncle Jack?"

"They should be up soon. Layla's bracing up the side of the hill with her plants. Hopefully that will stop any more landslides. That other Will, the flying one, should be bringing up more people soon."

Holly turned and pointed. "That other Will is over there passed out from exhaustion. And I haven't seen anything from Layla in a while. Shouldn't she be back already?"

He knew she was right. Layla should have been bringing up people again. He started to walk over to the edge. Diana extended her magic staff, and nodded for him to grab a hold of it. "Just in case there is another landslide," she said.

"Thank you," he said, making sure that his eyes didn't stray down to the fur bikini outfit she wore. _Who are the parents that let their kids run around like that?_ he thought to himself.

Looking below, it seemed that chaos reigned. The battle between the robot and the purple giant had allowed the Borg to overrun the barricades that had been built. People were retreating to a large circle that he'd been told was some kind of magic barrier that wouldn't allow the Borg to cross. But the problem was that the circle was only so big and there were lots of people still running for cover.

"What's going on, dad?"

"It's all falling apart down there," he answered. "I can't see Will or Rick anywhere."

"Don't worry, dad. Uncle Rick's really good at looking after the two of us. I'm sure he and Will are fine."

"I'm sure there are," he said. He wished he really believed that.

**AUTHOR's NOTES**

**In Order Of Appearance (hopefully): **

The female Changeling – from the TV show Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Alpha Hirogen – from the TV show Star Trek: Voyager

The mirror universe Captain James T. Kirk – from the TV show Star Trek – the original series

Gul Dukat – from the TV show Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Borg – from the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation

Rick Marshall – from the TV show Land Of The Lost

Jack Marshall – from the TV show Land Of The Lost

Enik – from the TV show Land Of The Lost

Will Marshall – from the TV show Land Of The Lost

Holly Marshall – from the TV show Land Of The Lost

Will Stronghold – from the movie Sky High

The Commander – from the movie Sky High

Jetstream – from the movie Sky High

Sheila / Thief – from the cartoon Dungeons & Dragons

Layla – from the movie Sky High

Lynx-O – from the cartoon ThunderCats

WilyKit – from the cartoon ThunderCats

WilyKat – from the cartoon ThunderCats

Dash – from the movie The Incredibles

Ulysses Adair – from the TV show Earth 2

True Danziger – from the TV show Earth 2

Terrans – from the TV show Earth 2 (mentioned only)

Underminer – from the movie The Incredibles (mentioned only)

Bobby / Barbarian – from the cartoon Dungeons & Dragons

Presto / Magician – from the cartoon Dungeons & Dragons

Uni – from the cartoon Dungeons & Dragons

Static Shock – from the cartoon Static Shock

Cindy Collins / Princess – from the movie Zoom

Zoom – from the movie Zoom

Wednesday Addams – from the TV show The Addams Family

Pugsley Addams – from the TV show The Addams Family

Eddie Munster – from the TV show The Munsters

Giant-Man – from the movie Sky High

Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man – from DC Comics

Professor X – from Marvel Comics

King Kong – from the movies

Ant-Man – from Marvel Comics

Devastator – from the cartoon Transformers

Validus – from DC Comics

Diana / Acrobat – from the cartoon Dungeons & Dragons

Gomez Addams – from the show The Addams Family

Morticia Addams – from the TV show The Addams Family

Eerie, Indiana – from the TV show Eerie, Indiana

Megatron – from the cartoon Transformers

Master – from the TV show Doctor Who

Tia Malone – from the movie Escape To Witch Mountain

Zok – from the cartoon The Herculoids

Spot – from the TV show The Munsters

Hank / Ranger – from the cartoon Dungeons & Dragons

Ace – from the TV show Doctor Who

Principal Powers – from the movie Sky High

Jetstream – from the movie Sky High

The Commander – from the movie Sky High

Tucker Williams / Mega Boy – from the movie Zoom

Rincewind – from the Discworld book series

The Luggage – from the Discworld book series


	37. Chapter 37

**A Tangled Web 8 Part 37**

Along the ridge overhanging the battle scene, the youngest of the Yautja hunters examined his prey. He had found the group of Humans that had wounded him previously. The United States Marine Corps Space Aviator Cavalry, 58th Squadron, also known as the Wildcards, were doing the best to hold their section of the wall to keep out the Borg. There were only four of them now, but they had wounded him grievously, and he was not in a very forgiving mood. The sensible thing for him to do would be to go in for a quick kill followed by retrieval of his trophy. Then he could go and give some serious attention to his wounds. Not the best of hunting stories, but it would be enough to let him keep his honor.

But then, next to the 58th Squadron, he saw the rocky frame of the Thing chucking massive boulders at the Borg like they were marbles. Such a spectacular trophy would do much to salve over his previous errors.

Sitting on his haunches, he had to reach over with his arm to steady himself due to the blood loss he had suffered. Using his plasma shoulder cannon, he fired a shot right into the middle Wildcards, sending them flying in every direction.

Ben Grimm, known as the Thing, turned in the direction the blast came from just as the young hunter fired his spear gun at him. Seeing the projectile, Grimm reached out to grab it, trusting in his durable hide to keep him safe. Having the spear pierce through the palm of his hand was not what he expected.

"Son of a - Alright, buddy, now you are asking for it!"

The young alien hunter threw a Smart Disc, which was an extremely sharp, durable frisbee-like weapon at the rocky skinned Thing. Grimm, knowing now that he shouldn't trust his own durability against this new enemy, picked up a large sized rock with his uninjured hand. As the lethal disc neared, Grimm struck, knocking the Disc so that it dug itself deep into the ground.

"Hah!" stated the Thing. "Put that in your pipe-" Before he could finish, a net slammed him backwards into the ground, wrapping around him tightly. "A net? You think you can hold me down with a net?" Then the net began to constrict. "Argh! Tough net. Tough as this spear you stuck me with I bet." Using the sharp end of the spear that was still sticking out of the back of his hand, Ben Grimm began to cut his way free of the net. "If this is what it feels like for Wolverine, he can keep the '_claws coming outta the hands' _gig to himself."

He looked up just in time to see a plasma blast hurtling toward his head.

"Nyet!" The noble Colossus of the X-Men jumped in front Ben Grimm, attempting to block the blast. Unfortunately, it knocked him back into the Thing, embedding both of them into the wall they had been building. Another blast embedded them even further as well as partially stunning them.

The Yautja hunter landed a few yards in front of them, stumbling to his knees before forcing himself to get back up again. Flexing his wrists, twin blades on each arm came to bear even as his camouflage field turned off. "Now you are asking for it!" came Grimm's words, repeated back to him, slightly garbled.

Groaning, Ben looked up. "I'm not going to be killed by some damn alien parrot." He tried to pull himself free, but it was taking some effort and he didn't have the right leverage to work with.

"You better have a permit for that," spoke a calm voice with authority.

Whirling around, the alien hunter lashed out, knocking the high powered weapon out of Agent Kay's hands. Agent Kay leapt back to keep from being disemboweled with the next swing.

Lt. Col. T.C. McQueen, leader of the Wildcards, with his blood pouring out of him, managed to painfully bring his weapon up and fired, hitting the young hunter in the arm.

The Yautja roared in pain and anger. Turning, he fired his plasma cannon mounted on his shoulder, instantly wiping McQueen from existence.

"Kay! Catch!"

Agent Kay caught the Little Cricket Agent Jay had tossed to him, and then ducked down low to the ground to avoid another strike from the Yautja. Using the Little Cricket, Kay fired. The firing of the Little Cricket knocked Agent Kay backwards, but even more apparent was that the blast knocked the young Yautja up and over the wall where he landed hard on the ground.

The fall damaged his breathing apparatus which he had to pull off with his one good arm. Sensing someone approaching, he lashed out with his wrist blades, he sliced off the newcomers legs at the knees. Sitting up, he was surprised to note that his victim was one of the slow moving cyborgs. He also realized that his attack of the cyborg had drawn the attention. He managed to use his shoulder plasma cannon on the nearest drones before it shorted out due to damages from his fall. Knowing that it was hopeless now, he went to engage his self destruct device only to realize that McQueen's shot had destroyed it.

He reengaged his cloaking field, and prepared to try slip away. Yet the red beams from their tracking eye lit upon him at once, followed by a hail of stun beams.

Chaos reigned as the walls used to keep the Borg at bay along the villains side was breached. Some of those that could fly away did so such as the Chameleon Chief and Doctor Polaris. But not everyone was as fortunate. Golden Glider tried to skate her way through the air with her brother Captain Cold wearing the deceased Trickster's air-walking shoes. Both were stunned by Borg fire and fell down to the ground. The Borg sent a series of short burst streams of communication to the super android Amazo to entice him to their side. Realizing he had more in common with the Borg, Amazo used his power ring to make a large bottle to contain those around him starting with the Pied Piper, Two-Face, Kanjar Ro, Destro, Matter Master and Brak. The Pied Piper managed to produce a sound capable to breaking the bottle and blast the android off balance in order to allow the Matter Master to use his wand to turn Amazo into a statue made out of tin. Professor Ivo, Amazo's disturbed creator, pushed through the throng of villains running for cover to fall down and cry at the feet of Amazo.

The most fortunate thing to have happened for the villains at this time was Skeletor's desire to test his new magical ring that had once belonged to the Earth-3 villain known as Power Ring.

"Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! This is wondrous! How I have dreamed to have power like this at my command! My every thought – my every whim – can be made true!" Weapon blasts on his green protective aura around him drew his attention back to the situation at hand. "You would dare to attack me? Then die!"

A wave of emerald energy crashed into the nearest Borg drones, knocking them back into other drones, and so on, until a whole segment of the Borg forces, those that weren't killed or crushed, were nearly a half-mile away.

Those drones that had not been in the direct path of the energy wave continued on in their attack.

"That was incredible, Lord Skeletor!" Evil-Lyn commented as she stepped over to stand at his right side. Daring herself she reached out a hand to touch his arm, murmuring in wonder as her fingers passed through the green aura Skeletor had around him. "Such power…"

"Yes, I know." Skeletor examined the ring tracing his bony fingers over it's grooves. "To think that all this power resides within this small ring. It's shape so simple, so perfect, so precious-" There was a sudden barrage upon his person that Evil-Lyn, Tri-Klops and Shadow Weaver had to duck for cover. Beast Man had been a half second too slow, resulting on a quarter of the hair on the left side of his body to be singed off. Panthor, Skeletor's battle-cat had stayed low to the ground, snarling in fury while slashing his claws at the large sparks that landed around him.

"Save us, o great Skeletor!" begged the small being known as Imp, who had also been responsible for bringing the ring to Skeletor.

"These cybernetic creatures need to mind their betters," snarled Skeletor, as he reinforced his emerald aura around him, before sending out another wave of energy. While the output of energy was larger, the results were less so.

"What? How did they do that?" snapped Skeletor as he noted the few drones that had been taken out in his second attack.

"They are adapting, my lord," responded Shadow Weaver as she floated over to his left side. "That is how they survive."

Evil-Lyn hissed in anger. Since Hordak's death, the cloaked Shadow Weaver had been vying for Evil-Lyn's position in Skeletor's inner circle of advisors. "That rodent alien that had the ring before you, he seemed to succeed best by using a different attack each time. You must use your imagination, Lord Skeletor, and continuously come up with new ways to destroy them."

"Hmm, you might have something there." Skeletor sent an energy beam into the ground near a group of oncoming drones. The ground liquefied and the drones sank out of sight, and then the ground became solid again. "Ah, now I just have to choose a variety of new death for the remaining drones. Ha! I like it!"

"Clear the way," yelled a man who pushed past the reptile saurinoid Tung Lasher.

"Who is this?" demanded Skeletor. "Who dares to force themselves into my prescience?"

The redhead man in grey prison clothes scowled at the skull-like visage of Skeletor. "My name is Alexei Luthor. I'm a super-genius and I can tell you how to destroy those drones on the field right now."

"Oh really?" Skeletor paused in thought, instead of killing the Human outright. Even he had heard of the evil genius of Luthor. "I thought Luthor was bald?"

Alexei spat. He hated how his Earth-2 counterpart, Lex Luthor, was somehow better known than he was even though Alexei had started his vendetta against the Superman in his universe decades before his '_twin_', Lex, had. "You're thinking of my inferior counterpart, who goes for the more spectacular effects and has a problem killing just for the sake of it."

Skeletor was beginning to like the man. "Tell me your idea. And I might let you live."

Alexei Luthor turned and pointed. "These are my colleagues. Nemesis Kid and Mist Master."

Nemesis Kid had Scorpia in a headlock with one arm while he kept hold of her lethal stinger with the other, all while calmly walking toward them. Behind him came a greenish mist which showed the features of a malicious young man. "You need better guards," the 30th century villain stated calmly as he casually released Scorpia, who stumbled back in embarrassment at the ease in which Nemesis Kid had handled her.

"You may be right," Skeletor said, scornfully, letting his pawns realize that they needed to start showing their full potential or else. "What is this plan of yours?" he demanded, irritated to having had a weakness shown just as he had received such wondrous power.

"It involves your ring."

"What? You expect me to trust anyone with-"

"Shut up, damn it! You get to use your ring, no one else!"

"Then tell me!"

Alexei fumed inside, but kept his anger in check. "This one, the Mist Master, can turn into any type of gas or vapor. He's the key."

"The key? The key to what?"

"Mist Master can turn into a gas that can liquefy or disintegrate carbon-lifeforms."

"Yeah, I know lots of gases that can do that," agreed Mist Master. "But I can't expand large enough to destroy very many of those drones before they let me have it."

Alexei smiled. "And that's where you come in, Skeletor."

If Skeletor's brow could furrow, it would have. "How do you mean?"

Luthor's smirk grew. He was used to explain the obvious to others. "Simply put, you use your ring to increase Mist Master's ability to spread himself over a large area. And to make sure he still has the strength to convert into the necessary amounts of the stuff needed to wipe out the Borg."

Skeletor tapped the side of his out mouth, literally since he had no flesh on his face. "But what of their cybernetic side that would remain?"

"It would fall to the ground unable to function. It's designed to work only with biological organisms. Without that the units would cease to function."

"I see. Very well, let's give it a try."

Nemesis Kid, the leader of the Legion of Super-Villains, took a few moments to reassure Mist Master, followed by a few lightly veiled threats.

Skeletor used his ring to strengthen Mist Master as the villain dispersed across the field of oncoming Borg drones, and keeping two dozen yards away from where the heroes and villains were fighting for their lives. When he had spread across over two-thirds of the area, Mist Master stopped expanding. "I – I can't go any further."

"Then do it already!" demanded Nemesis Kid.

"I don't know if I can make the change!"

"Grrr! Let me then!" snarled Skeletor. Using the power ring, Skeletor poured the necessary power into Mist Master, and then forced the change within him to become the lethal substance necessary to destroy the drones.

"Hey! What are sprock are you doing to me?" demanded Mist Master. Not only was he now changing into the necessary flesh-dissolving gas, but he was also expanding further than he felt safe.

"What are you doing to him?" demanded Nemesis Kid.

"Making him do his job," pointed out Alexei Luthor. "This has to be done if we are to survive."

The darkened green cloud covered the Borg hiding them from sight. The Borg outside the cloud fighting against the heroes and villains along their barricades, turned as one to watch the cloud that had swallowed up their brethren. They turned from those they had been fighting and moved toward the cloud with instruments raised to collect data.

Near the edge of the cloud, the enlarged form of the hero known as Ant-Man grappled with the Borg nano-probe infected Giant Man while the villain known as the Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man took a few minutes to recover from his exhaustion. Using one of the many types of wrestling moves contained in the Borg Collective, Giant Man twisted his body and sent Ant-Man flying off and to the ground.

Ant-Man, secretly Hank Pym, skidded to a halt on his back, but not before his left hand entered the green mist of the Mist Master. "Ahhhhhh!" Pulling his hand out of the green cloud, revealed a gory mess. His glove had been totally disintegrated. The skin over his hand was totally gone. Many of the muscles of the hand were turned to gooey gel with some bone showing in places.

Realizing he might pass out at any moment, Ant-Man shrunk down to ant size and used his helmet to summon a flying ant to take him to the medical triage area. Once he was on the ant and flying, he sent another message by his helmet to the Wasp, so that she could be present when he got there so that she could make sure he didn't remain miniaturized once he got there. His other reason for calling her was simply that he knew he'd be in serious trouble if he hadn't. And he didn't need any more trouble right now. It was up to the Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man to take on Giant Man for now.

"What's going on over here?" Lex Luthor, the bald Luthor from an alternate dimension than Alexei, came barging in with Brainiac right behind him. Having been among the first group here, and since the Master left, Lex and Brainiac had more or less led the villains in all their major decisions. Which was a fact that many of the others thought was chafing.

"What does it look like, Lex? We are wiping out most of the Borg, before they wipe us out!" snapped Alexei. There wasn't any real animosity between him and his bald doppelganger, in fact, Lex was the closest he'd ever come to having a peer. Even when they corresponded with each other across the dimensional barrier that separated their two universes, they never shared their scientific discoveries. It was a matter of trust. Alexei had never trusted anyone, and there for had no one, while Lex had managed to gather a number of villains and form The Legion Of Doom. And it was also a matter of social skills; Alexei was fierce and angry, while Lex had charisma and leadership skills when he chose to use them. If Alexei had been able to work with others he would have been a member of the Injustice Society or formed a group of his own.

"That's Mist Master out there, right? What's he doing?" demanded the other Luthor.

"He's dissolving the drones," stated the Evil-Lyn.

"And Skeletor?" asked Brainiac. "How does he fit in?"

"He's empowering Mist Master with his ring to make it possible," added Nemesis Kid.

"You should have run it by us," insisted Lex. "We could have had more of our heavy hitters to take out more of the drones in the confusion."

"They had breached our barriers! We were being routed! And you wanted us to run it by you first?" snarled Alexei. "The only real problem you have with this is that you didn't think of it first!"

"We have the telepaths set up for communication!" barked Lex. "All you had to do was send a thought to Brain Wave or one of the other telepaths and we'd have been able to confer!"

"There wasn't time for a committee!" retorted Alexei. "And it's done! The Borg have been crippled by me! Not you!"

"Not completely," answered Brainiac. He dropped a pellet to the floor that began emitting a gas upon contact. Taking his blaster he shot Skeletor in the back of the head, but his protective green aura kept the blast from being lethal yet still knocked him out. Everyone that breathed air within ten yards began to freeze up as paralysis began to take hold of them due to Brainiac's action.

As soon as Skeletor became unconscious, the power beam strengthening and holding Mist Master together went out.

"Nooo!" cried Mist Master. "I can't…hold…myselffff tooogettttherrrrrrrr-" Slowly the greenish cloud that was Mist Master began to dissipate revealing a Borg scrap yard. A few drones managed to survive due to being silicone lifeforms and two lifeforms from an incredibly toxic environment.

Back among the villains, Lex Luthor managed to ask, "W-w-w why?"

The green complexioned android smiled at perhaps the only friend he could have said to have. "The Borg Queen has contacted me. She has invited me to be her intellectual companion, as a semi-independent non-Borg individual to share and compare insights with. A type of marriage, I suppose, or union. Considering all the intellectual and scientific wealth she has gathered, how could I refuse? But since she will be sharing with me all that she has, I realized I should provide her with some token of my esteem. And that is when I thought of you, Lex, the only organic lifeform that I have ever felt to almost be equals with. The way your biological mind works is fascinating. Despite our mutual vendetta against Superman, studying you was the reason I chose to stay on your primitive planet Earth, as well as joining your Legion Of Doom. I postulate that the Borg Queen will find you equally intriguing."

Reaching down, Brainiac picked up Lex under one arm. "And how uniquely fortunate I am to actually have two Luthors to give to her." Picking up Alexei, he held under Brainiac's other arm. "And once you are turned into a drone, I'll still be in contact with you. In a way I'll be giving up my bachelorhood yet still be able to keep my '_best friend_' with me. As I understand it, most relationships do not allow for that to happen to a great extent after one marries."

Brainiac stepped over the unconscious cloaked form of Shadow Weaver, pausing just briefly to examine the exposed part of her head. "How unusual. I'll have to do a more thorough examination of you if the Borg manage to capture you intact."

He hurried away with his burden to make his escape in the confusion.

**AUTHOR's NOTES**

_Sorry it's short this time. Dealing with stuff and pain issues. Anyway, I am glad to have dealt with another one of the __Yautja hunters (from the movie Predator), so that means I have two more Yautja hunters on the field of battle. As for the Brainiac being wooed by the Borg Queen, it just seemed very natural for Brainiac, an alien android entity that used to collect alien cities, shrink them down and bottle them for study, to be extremely interested in the Borg, who have collected the knowledge and technologies of thousands of alien races._

**List of Characters in the Order of Appearance**

Yautja – from the movie Predator

Lt. Col. T.C. McQueen – from the TV show Space: Above And Beyond

The Thing – from the movie Fantastic Four

Wolverine – from the movie X-Men

Colossus – from the movie X-Men

Agent Kay – from the movie Men In Black

Agent Jay – from the movie Men In Black

Chameleon Chief – from DC Comics

Dr. Polaris – from DC Comics

Golden Glider – from DC Comics

Captain Cold – from DC Comics

Trickster – from DC Comics

Amazo – from DC Comics

Pied Piper – from DC Comics

Two-Face – from DC Comics

Kanjar Ro – from DC Comics

Destro – from DC Comics

Matter Master – from DC Comics

Brak – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Prof. Ivo – from DC Comics

Skeletor – from the cartoon He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe

Power Ring of Earth-3 – from DC Comics

Evil-Lyn – from the cartoon He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe

Tri-Klops – from the cartoon He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe

Shadow Weaver – from the cartoon She-Ra

Beast Man – from the cartoon He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe

Panthor – from the cartoon He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe

Imp – from the cartoon She-Ra

Hordak – from the cartoon She-Ra

Tung Lasher – from the cartoon She-Ra

Alexei Luthor from Earth-2 – from DC Comics

Ant-Man – from the upcoming movie Ant-Man

Giant Man – from the movie Sky High

Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man – from DC Comics

Wasp – from the upcoming movie Ant-Man

Lex Luthor from Earth-1 – from DC Comics

Superman – from DC Comics

Nemesis Kid – from DC Comics

Mist Master – from DC Comics

Scorpia – from the cartoon She-Ra

Brainiac – from DC Comics

Brain Wave of Earth-2 – from DC Comics


	38. Chapter 38

**A TANGLED WEB 8**

**Chapter 38**

Thor grappled with the Borg controlled Greek demi-god Hercules. Part of him reveled at the opportunity of taking on the Greek legendary figure, but with the Borg threat looming over all reality he didn't have that luxury. Hercules was different than he had thought he would be - his face was shaved and his hair was long. There were other things as well but perhaps it was due to the differences in their alternate universes.

Thor and the newly formed Avengers had been taken captured by the time-despot Kang the Conqueror. Kang had put his controlling collars on the Avengers and then used them to take out the Fantastic Four. Once they were put under Kang's control as well, he sent both teams out to collect the X-Men. Kang was about to divide then into smaller teams to collect Spider-Man, the Hulk, Ghost Rider, Blade, Dr. Strange, and even the Daredevil and Punisher, but one of his monitors informed him of a sudden breach in an area of time that had been completely walled off to him before. He seized the opportunity, knowing that he might never have another chance, and took his newly acquired warriors to explore this unexplored land. Instead, his fighters were beaten and freed from his control, while Kang slipped away into the time stream. But now that they were here and learned what was going on, all of them – Avengers, Fantastic Four, and the X-Men – agreed that the Borg needed to be stopped.

While Thor was near invulnerable, the shower of blasts from the drones firing on him hurt. Thor swung his enchanted hammer Mjolnir and let it fly knocking many of the drones down; while their shields did protect them from the damage from the hammer, the inertia was strong enough to dash them about like dominos. This attack did leave him vulnerable to Hercules, who struck him with enough force to knock him back where another partially assimilated drone, the OSI agent Steve Austin, swung his bionic fist, right into Thor's jaw. The Norse deity stumbled back, mostly from being caught off guard. He almost missed catching his hammer as it returned to him. When he looked over at Steve Austin, Thor could see that the fist of the bionic man had shattered into bits of plastic and metal, some of which still dangled oddly from his wrist.

Thor readied himself for another attack from Hercules, when something landed on his shoulders and attacked his head. Angela of the Gargoyles, also partially assimilated into the service of the Borg, tried to stick her claws into Thor's eyes, eyes being one of the easiest things for the Borg to replace, but had her hands grabbed before she could inflict any damage. He swung the female Gargoyle around like a bat hitting Hercules. Thor let them tumble away across the ground. Thor knew Hercules would be back on his feet in a moment, but Angela would be down for a little while until the nanites could repair some of her broken bones.

Steve Austin delivered a bionic kick to the side of Thor's head resulting in smashing his foot to a jangled mess. Thor caught himself from falling just in time to bring his hammer Mjolnir up to block a high intensity beam from one of the Sleestak fully-processed Borg drones.

A head-sized rock smashed into the fleshy side of the Sleestak drone's head, killing it. The thrower of the stone crashed into Steve Austin from behind, and struggled to pin him down.

Angel, a soul-cursed vampire, wrestled with Steve Austin, trying to keep the bionic drone from getting loose. "I can't hold him long!"

"You do not have to for long," Thor said. "I shall smite his head and give him a warrior's death."

"Whoa! Hold up there, winghead! No head flattening needed. We have this one," said one of Angel's associates, Charles Gunn, as he ran up and injected a large hypodermic needle into the side of the bionic man's neck.

Steve Austin began to tremble and then convulse. Angel jumped up and then back.

"What did you inject him with?" asked Thor.

"Something the scientists have been whipping up," answered Gunn.

"They don't have much of it," Angel went on to explain, "but what extra they have, we are trying to use to save as many of those that have become drones as possible. It's also only made to deal with the drones that haven't been refitted with accessories."

Thor nodded at this. "What would this serum do to a fully processed drone?"

"Don't know for sure," Gunn responded. "But that creepy, bald, mad scientist guy seemed to imply that it would be an interesting application and he'd like to try to study the resulting implosion sometime."

As Steve Austin began to vomit up the nanites in his system, Thor and the others took a couple of steps back.

"Is this what is suppose to happen?" asked Thor.

"Yes," came a new voice. Mr. Fantastic stretched out onto the field. "I've got more serum."

"We will need it," Thor said as he renewed his grappling attack with Hercules.

Mr. Fantastic's arm moved in a snake-like strike, embedding the needle deep in Hercules' exposed shoulder.

"The female Gargoyle would be a good candidate for the Borg antidote," suggested Mr. Fantastic.

But as they moved toward her, Angela stood up and leapt into the air, using her wings to take flight.

"Oh no you don't." Mr. Fantastic stretched out his arms and wrapped them tight around her wings, then pulled her back to him. The leader of the Fantastic Four fashioned the rest of his body into a large airbag to keep her from further harm. "The injection quick! She is very strong!"

Thor picked up one of the unused syringes from the ground and injected the young, female Gargoyle in her shoulder.

"Very good," commented Mr. Fantastic. "You should have been a doctor."

"Most of the Borg are gone," Thor commented, as he threw his mystic hammer at the Borg controlled Giant-Man in the distance, making him reminisce about fighting frost giants while defending Asgard. "What has happened?"

"The villains," began Mr. Fantastic, as he let Angela loose so that she could expel the miniature robotic nanites from her body. "They managed to deploy some type of cloud that disintegrates flesh. It covered a large area of the field on which the Borg were advancing. Now that a majority of the drones have been destroyed or disabled, they seem to be pulling back to regroup."

"You're partially right," Angel commented. "They aren't pulling back. They seem to be staying at their current position, and waiting for reinforcements before marching forward again."

Charles Gunn ducked behind the corpse of a small dinosaur that had been the victim of a stray shot. "Meanwhile, they're going to keep trying to pick us off."

Angel jumped down next to Gunn while Mr. Fantastic lowered himself down to the ground with his malleable abilities. Thor caught his returning hammer and used it to deflect anything aimed at him. "Their giant is now down," proclaimed the Norse thunder god.

"I've got to get a hammer like that," Gunn said.

"They may not be advancing, but most of their number are closest to the heroes side of the battlefield," Mr. Fantastic pointed out.

"Don't they have some kind of hive mind?" asked Angel.

"Yes," answered the leader of the Fantastic Four.

Gunn understood where Angel was going with his idea, and decided to add some of his own ideas to the mix. "They have that field by the triage that the Borg Collective can't get through. Can't we extend it?"

"It was made with magic," Mr. Fantastic replied. "And Wotan, the magician that made it, said it would be near impossible to enlarge, with all the excess energy flying around."

"What about a radio jammer?" Gunn said. "I mean, something like a radio jammer, but without magic."

"I don't do magic," answered Mr. Fantastic. "And they resources to my disposal are very limited, but still…" Mr. Fantastic considered his options. "Prof. X, can you hear me?"

_Yes, Reed, what is it?_ came the telepathic reply.

"I want to try something that may neutralize the enemy."

_Please elaborate._

"I need to examine a few people to see if it will work. Can you have Electra Woman and Sonar report to the triage, please?"

_I'll do it right away._

"I'd also like to examine you."

There was just a slight pause. _Very well. I'll be waiting._

Reed Richards turned to his companions. "Hopefully this will work. Meanwhile I have one syringe left. Use it wisely." He handed the serum to Gunn. Then extended his body into loops around Hercules, Angela and Steve Austin in order to bring them with him, but hanging their bodies to the side so that the expulsed nanites left a trail behind him.

"That is truly disgusting," Angel commented.

"I agree." Gunn spat in the dirt, disgusted. "Let's just hope we don't end up experiencing that."

Instead of commenting, Thor looked up and watched as Black Adam flew through the sky, returning to the villains' side. The god of thunder could sense the godly empowerment in the Egyptian and knew that is was evil. A fight between them would be legendary, and long remembered. But it would have to be after this escapade with the Borg was ended. He blocked another blast from one of the Borg drones with him mighty hammer. "Onward to battle!" he shouted as he swung his hammer.

The blockade on the heroes side was very active. Now that the villains had cleared away most of the drones attacking their side, thanks to Skeletor and Mist Master, the heroes were working hard to remove the drones in their way.

"Damn it, Lore! Slow down already!" shouted a young man.

Lore, the evil '_brother_' of the Starfleet android Data, was forced to comply with his '_master's_' wishes thanks to a program that one of the time lords known as the Doctor had introduced into his system. "I saw him over this way! If I wait for you, I'll never catch him. And then he will have the drop on us!"

"You're right," admitted Foley. "But try to not go more than, uh, let's say fifty meters from me, ok? Please?" Jake Foley had only been adventuring in the field as a NSA agent for a few years now. When an accident injected him with experimental nanomites, they had enabled him to a variety of feats such as superhuman strength, speed and senses, as well as healing. It also enabled him to move from being a top-notch computer technician to being part of a Special Ops team revolving around his new abilities. But during a recent battle against the Borg, the nanomites in his body had been destroyed by the superhero Static Shock. Fortunately, when the Doctor had informed Lore about the new programming that had been made a part of him, Jake had stepped in and made himself '_master_' over Lore, and Lore now had to obey his every command.

"And why's this alien want you so bad?"

Lore grit his teeth so hard some of his artificial teeth started to form stress cracks. "Because it pissed me off and so I shot off his arm!" There was a bit more to it than that. The Yautja leader had shot of Lore's arm in their first encounter, and Lore did likewise in return.

Jake gulped, but pushed on forward. "So you think he's going to just come after us?"

"I shot off his arm. He's going to come after me."

"What about the Elf lady? Where did she take off to?"

"Don't worry about Sela!" Lore snapped. "Worry about that damn alien hunter that wants to destroy me!"

"What's he look like?" Jake jumped over the stunned form of the Blue Raja, who had one of his forks still clutched in his hand.

"You can't see him but he's big. He has a high-tech body camouflage making it nearly impossible to spot him. My optics can perceive him, but he's taken precautions to keep out of my line of sight."

"Then how are you going to get him?"

"Just stay out of my way while I do this, and we'll all survive to another day. Unless something else here kills us."

"Are you sure you don't want my help?"

Lore ran a quick diagnostic check to see if the Three Robotic Laws was still functioning in his system. Because once it was removed, Jake would be swiftly terminated. But that was not the case just yet. "Just…find someone here to help, and leave me alone so I can kill this thing."

Jake felt a bit dejected, but then looked back and saw the Blue Raja. Here was someone he could help. He turned back to Lore. "I'm going to help with the wounded. So good hunting. And come find me when you are done, ok? I'm worried about you."

Lore scanned the various groups of bodies, some pressing forward to try push the Borg back, others waited to be rescued, being either wounded or stunned. Somewhere in all this was the extremely dangerous alien hunter. "Where are you, you miserable excuse for a carbon based lifeform?"

He was almost distracted when he saw the young girl River Tam look over the wall and shoot in rapid succession, always hitting the drones she shot. Within a few nanoseconds he deduced that the young Human must have enhanced senses. When she ducked down again, her head turned to regard him. Then she pointed back behind him.

Lore turned as he leaped to the side, a deadly metal disc passing by where he had been, just grazing his clothing. He fired his phaser, just missing the one-armed Yautja hunter.

The one-armed alien was about to rain down more blasts at the android when he found himself encapsulated in a yellow substance that shorted out his camouflage circuits, leaving him visible for everyone to see.

"Good job, Gloop!" called out Zandor, leader of the Herculoids. "Hold onto him." Zandor, Igoo and Gloop had been about to join the other heroes to the push back the Borg, when Gloop had alerted them to the presence of another alien like the one that had killed their friend, the ten-legged, four horned, ceratopsian dinosaur Tundro.

The alien predator was not finished. Stuck inside the protoplasmic creature called Gloop, the Yautja reached with his remaining hand for his vibro-knife and started to slash his way out.

Gloop gurgled a scream of extreme agony as he pulled away from the Yautja and collapsed into a quivering puddle.

With a cry of anger, Zandor fired an energy pellet from his slingshot, but the alien trophy seeker leaped out of the way. In retaliation, the Yautja used his shoulder-mounted plasma caster and blasted the ground in front of Zandor, knocking him off balance and ducking for cover.

A man in a black leather jacket jumped onto the Yautja's back. "I got him!" shouted Mr. Furious of the Mystery Men, as he tried to apply a choke hold.

The one-armed Yautja reached back with his remaining arm, and grabbed hold of Mr. Furious' jacket.

"Now he's got meeeeee!" Mr. Furious flew through the air only to be caught by the massive rock ape creature known as Igoo. And because Igoo is made of rock, the impact was enough to render Mr. Furious unconscious and break a few bones.

Setting the stunned Human down on the ground, Igoo let out a roar and charged forward. The Yautja's shoulder-mounted plasma cannon fired again hitting Igoo in the shoulder, making him spin and fall to the ground. Smoke and a light glowing from the molten area of his shoulder were the only things an observer could see.

Lore fired a shot, hitting the alien hunter's shoulder plasma cannon, disabling it. "That'll even the playing field some."

The one-armed hunter roared with rage as he fired his netgun at Lore. The net projectile covered the android, violently throwing him back against the ground, and then began to constrict around him.

"What the hell are you waiting for?" Lore shouted, as his artificial skin covering began to give way to the constricting net.

A phaser shot set at maximum struck the Yautja on his left side. The alien hunter had only a second to bellow his wrath before being disintegrated to nothingness.

"I could use some help here!" hollered Lore. His internal sensors were telling him that his outer casing of his frame was starting to be compromised by the alien net device.

A small explosion of smoke and brimstone appeared next to him. Emerging was a skinny man with dark blue fur, three fingered hands, two toed feet, and a forked tail. "One moment," he said with a German accent, before reaching out to touch Lore's hand.

There was another explosion of smoke and brimstone. Lore felt free of the cutting net, but for just a moment his sensory input devices tried to make sense of the dimension he seemed to be skipping across. Then he was back, but just a few feet from where he'd been entrapped. "How…?"

"Teleportation, mein friend." Nightcrawler of the X-Men gave a beaming smile. "I see that you are an android, so I am guessing you don't require immediate medical aid. Are your systems critical or should I take you over to the triage area?"

He had already been running a self-diagnostic test, but he was still irritated that this strange flesh and blood creature felt that he couldn't repair himself if needed.

"My damages are mostly superficial. You needn't concern yourself with me."

"Very well. And now I must go." There was another small explosion of smoke and brimstone, and the hero was gone.

Lore looked up at an approaching figure. "You took your sweet time."

Sela scowled. "I had my phaser set at the highest setting. I had to be sure the shot would count."

"Next time you can be the bait." Lore took a visual reading of his outward appearance. His clothes and skin showed evidence of numerous indented square cuts. In some places the clothes and skin had even fallen off, revealing the exoskeleton underneath. "I look like I've gone through a meteor shower!"

"You survived. That's what counts," she said coldly. Then she turned and fired. "Damn! Some of those Borg drones managed to slip through!"

"The battle line must have fractured when they were trying to force the Borg back."

"I don't think so," Sela said. "Look."

As they watched, one of the drones that had been lying broken on the ground got up and began to scan the surrounding area.

"They were either playing dead or they just needed a little more time to repair themselves. These Human heroes must have been too anxious in overpowering the Borg."

"That was sloppy of them, but what else can you expect from a bunch of Humans. Present company excluded, of course. I know you were raised by Romulans to override that aspect of your heritage." He glanced around, ignoring her withering look.

"Speaking out which, do you see your Human anywhere?" She said it intentionally, knowing that it would irritate him as much as his reference to Humans did her.

Lore let out a series of expletives in computer-speak. Sela turned to see what was the matter. Thirty feet away stood Jake Foley, his skin showing the tell-tale evidence of the Borg nano-probes in his body.

"Lore, you will come with us now." It was coming from Jake's mouth but it wasn't Jake.

"Lore!" Sela tried to turn fast enough to bring her weapon up to use, but the android was faster. His fist struck her in the side of the head, sending her tumbling away. He Jake's commands only, and evidently he'd have to do just that even if Jake was taken over by the Borg.

Gritting his teeth, Lore walked over to Jake as they made their way out through the edge of the wall where the Borg had captured a few more victims, including the Blue Rajah, Mr. Furious, Brennan Mulwray, Sinbad, Maya, and a few others. "Damn you, Jake," Lore spat. "You're carelessness has damned us both."

**AUTHOR's NOTES**

_Sorry for the long delay. First, the cable was out and then we had to move. I've also been writing a lot in my other story which is not fanfiction. I know that this isn't very long but I didn't want to put it off any longer,_

**In Order of Appearance**

Thor – from the movie Thor

Borg – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation

Hercules – from the TV series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys

Avengers – from the upcoming movie Avengers

Kang the Conqueror – from Marvel Comics

Fantastic Four – from the movie Fantastic Four

X-Men – from the movie X-Men

Spider-Man – from the movie Spider-Man (mentioned only)

Hulk – from the movie Hulk (mentioned only)

Ghost Rider – from the movie Ghost Rider (mentioned only)

Blade – from the movie Blade (mentioned only)

Dr. Strange – from the upcoming movie Dr. Strange (mentioned only)

Daredevil – from the movie Daredevil (mentioned only)

Punisher – from the movie Punisher (mentioned only)

Steve Austin – from the TV series The Six Million Dollar Man

Angela – from the cartoon Gargoyles

Sleestak – from the TV series The Land Of The Lost

Angel – from the TV shows Buffy and Angel

Charles Gunn – from the TV show Angel

Mr. Fantastic – from the movie Fantastic Four

Giant-Man – from the movie Sky High

Wotan – from DC Comics (mentioned only)

Prof. Charles Xavier – from the movie X-Men

Electra Woman – from the TV show Electra Woman & Dyna Girl (mentioned only)

Sonar – from DC Comics (mentioned only)

Black Adam – from DC Comics

Skeletor – from the cartoon He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe (mentioned only)

Mist Master – from DC Comics (mentioned only) (dead)

Jake Foley – from the TV show Jake 2.0

Lore – from the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation

Data – from the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation (mentioned only)

Static Shock – from the cartoon Static Shock (mentioned only)

Yautja – from the movie Predator

Sela – from the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation

Blue Raja – from the movie Mystery Men

River Tam – from the TV show Firefly

Gloop – from the cartoon The Herculoids

Zandor – from the cartoon The Herculoids

Igoo – from the cartoon The Herculoids

Tundro – from the cartoon The Herculoids (mentioned only) (dead)

Mr. Furious – from the movie Mystery Men

Nightcrawler – from the movie X-Men 2

Brennan Mulwray – from the TV show Mutant X

Sinbad – from the TV show Sinbad

Maya - from the TV show Space: 1999


	39. Chapter 39

**A TANGLED WEB 8 Part 39**

The young Paku Cha-Ka cowered behind the young boy who called himself the Other, also known as the Builder. They watched in fascination at the massive battle spread out in the valley before them. The Other just stared out at the panoramaic mêlée, drinking it all in. It was over five minutes before Cha-Ka dared to say anything to Builder, who Cha-Ka perceived as a god since it was he who had created this micro-dimension that the young Paku had lived his entire life in. Even so, Cha-Ka had to say something.

"Cha-Ka scared."

"I know," answered the boy. "I have been scanning the beings waging war against each other. What I have found there is incredible even by my standards."

"Builder is scared?" Cha-Ka asked, fearing the answer.

The Other frowned. "Mostly somewhat perplexed. Those cybernetic creatures known as the Borg that have invaded my terrarium dimension have to be dealt with, possibly even eradicated from time. I can sense that they are trying to find a way to Gallifrey, and that I cannot allow, even if it means annulling this place that I have created. These cybernetic beings must not be allowed to reach Gallifrey."

"Builder would destroy this land?" Cha-Ka asked, incredulous.

"Hopefully not." He glanced around. "I've grown rather fond of this place despite it's primitiveness."

Cha-Ka sighed with relief.

"But I also touched the mind of two renegade Gallifreyans; one being evil calling himself the Master, and another calling himself the Doctor who is here in several incarnations of himself. It's an extremely forbidden practice. And even though he is from far in my future, this Doctor seems oddly familiar."

The young Paku turned to where he heard water being poured in the distance away from the battlefield. What he saw made him jump. "Builder! Builder!"

Sitting in the stream of a little grotto was a super large ape, lifting handfuls of cool water to make brief waterfalls as it flowed over some of the numerous burns and cuts it received while fighting.

"He's too large," stated the Builder. "It's appetite could not be sustained in the current environment here. He will have to go back." He pointed a small handheld device at the mighty Kong. A thin ruby beam of light shot out and encapsulated the giant simian leaving him frozen in place. "Later, I will come back, heal his wounds, and send him home."

"Trapped in red light!" Cha-Ka exclaimed, bobbing up and down in excitement. He looked out at the battle scarred valley, ducking behind the Builder as Mr. Incredible went tumbling through the air over them only to crash high up in a tree. "Trap others in red light?" asked the young Paku.

"That would be simpler," said the young boy. "But there are three major groups on the field: the heroes, the villains and the Borg. The heroes and villains can be easily placed in stasis. The Borg on the field as well, but not all of the Borg are here right now. Those not in the vicinity would adapt a defense and I would no longer be able to contain. Indeed, those running free would soon find a way to free the other containment cells freeing the trapped drones and then the others occupants while turning them into drones." He took a deep breath and sighed. "No, it is better that I leave them to fight for now while we go to search for the true heart of the Borg. Then I can work on getting the rest of these intruders back where they belong."

OoOoOoOoO

Brainiac was not pleased. Being an android, he has been without emotion, except for maybe hate towards Superman and his need for revenge. But the Borg Queen, his new intellectual companion, had provided him with an emotion chip. Curious as to how it would work, he connected himself to it and turned it on, letting him feel a myriad of emotions. At first he had experienced wonder and awe at the various memories and emotions that she had collected. He had never considered sampling the emotions and memories of the various alien races nestled in the shrunken cities he had bottled because he had surmised that they were beneath him. But the way his new companion had arranged the linkup he was a little envious. It was so efficient and intense that there were almost no flaws in how it functioned. When he observed how her custom made drone walked past him, was this lust? If so, he approved of it despite the obvious errors it caused his logic logarithms. And while he knew he'd have to adjust to this new arrangement he had entered into with the Borg Queen, the one thing he could not accept, especially now that he could experiences jealousy, was a rival.

"These are not the parameters we agreed upon!" he said, with outrage.

The Borg Queen offered him a coy smile as she walked up to him. "It's not like that," she said. "True, I had sought Data as a consort previous to you, but this is his '_brother_', Lore."

"I know who he is!" snapped Brainiac, who had already accessed all the Data she had on both Starfleet officer Lt. Commander Data and his evil twin Lore. "And I don't want him here."

"You are a vastly superior being," she said, lulling him. "I only wish to study Lore. He managed to take over a piece of the Borg Collective that had become corrupted and broken off. His insights on how this happened would serve to protect and strengthen the Borg."

The green Coluian android studied the golden android that stood still at attention next to it's Human counterpart Jake Foley, one of the new drones that had been brought in to be processed. The only reason Lore spent as much time with Jake Foley was a program called the Three Laws of Robotics that had been uploaded into his system. The program made Lore a virtual slave to Jake's every whim. The Borg Queen had made sure that such a program could not affect her or her drones, but had been quite amused to have found that it had enslaved Lore to a Human's will. "And after that, can I destroy him?"

She made a slight shrug. "If you wish, though that would be wasteful. Why not try your hand at turning him into a cybernetic drone? It would be interesting to see what variation you would use in the construction. In fact, why don't you use Jake here for the organic components?"

Lore's face twisted in fury. The first reaction he'd displayed since being brought before the Borg Queen and her new consort. "I'll destroy you both! Wipe away your core being one gigabyte at a time by slow sporadic electrocution!"

His face jerked slight to one side as the nanites the Borg Queen had injected him with on arrival assume control of his being again. She sauntered up and gave his cheek a playful squeeze. "Don't be angry just because I/we have the upper hand. If you were in our position, you would be doing the very same thing."

Lore's face twitched. "You're damn right I would!" He glowered at the two of them until the Borg Queen took away the control of his face and vocal functions again.

"I believe you are right," Brainiac said, as the emotions in him began to calm down. Now he had an inkling of understanding as to how organics can be so irrational most of the time. "I will enjoy converting him into another drone."

She smiled and then turned away to where the two Luthors, one claiming to be Earth-1 and the other from Earth-2. "And what of these two?"

The Coluian android grinned. "My gifts? I think you will find them to be exceptionally ingenious and intelligent. I have collaborated with the Luthor from my universe several times. Never have I met any being like him before. As for the other Luthor, he's all most as brilliant, but not as successful as-"

"I-I-I am superior," sputtered the red-headed Luthor from Earth-2, "to that bald…lab rat that…trusted you!"

The Borg Queen's eyes widened in surprise, but not alarm. "He's managed to override some of the nano-probes."

Alexei Luthor from Earth-2, face pale with nanite veins spread all around, shook in pain as he tried to work his way free from the invisible control of the Borg Collective. He tried to raise his hand, only for it to fall back limply to his side.

"He'll be under control in a moment," Brainiac said, as he monitored the nanites in Alexei's body.

"You will pay…for this," spoke the other Luthor.

"They both managed to break free of the nano-probes? They truly are marvelous!"

Lex Luthor shook his bald head as if to shake off the effects the hold the Borg had over him. "If it's the…last thing I ever do. You-you will…p-p…" His eyes glazed over as the Collective resumed control over him.

"They are remarkable. I will want to conduct some more tests before processing these two."

"I thought you would," Brainiac replied, sharing her interest.

She turned to him. "And now I have another interesting development that I think will interest you." Using the Collective, she directed his attention to several drones that she had stationed at one of the tunnel entrances. It was there that the drones were battling against other drones.

"Why is this happening?" asked Brainiac.

"A good question," she said. "And I have the answer." She brought up visuals to show him. "Originally one of the Borg drone teams being sent into various parts of the multiverse, dropped my team into the 1896 A.D. of the Earth calendar near the San Joaquin Valley, California. Then I began my incubation process for my avatar, as each team did upon gaining a foothold on one of the parallel Earths."

"There I had the fortune of gaining a Gallifreyan time-lord as a drone. Remarkably, he was able to keep most of his memories. But I did learn that he was trying to stop the Borg from spreading throughout the multiverse. And on one of his excursions he recruited help from another universe from individuals named Clark Kent, Lana Lang, Chloe Sullivan and Lex Luthor."

"Luthor?" He glanced over at the two Luthors he had already collected. The themes of curiosity and greed began to course through his system from his new emotion chip.

"Not only that, but this new Luthor is in his early twenties, and not a delinquent, evil mastermind."

"What does this have to do with Borg unaffiliated drones attacking our Borg drones?" He had made to stress the word 'our'.

"That's the curious part," she said. "That Lex Luthor had been captured and turned into a drone. Shortly thereafter, an unusual explosion had fractured the Collective. Lex had survived in a fractured part of the Collective and quickly took it over."

Brainiac nodded. "That I can easily believe."

"Then on his own, he changed his allegiance, and helped to defeat the Collective on that world."

"Luthors always want to be in charge and are rarely forgiving."

"This Luthor also decommissioned a majority of his drones, keeping only the drones that could not survive disconnected from his Collective."

"His Collective?"

She nodded slightly. "And he took on a new designation."

"How does that matter to us?"

"He took the name Brainiac."

The Coluian android froze even as his central processors went into over gear in order factualize the implications. Was the universe somehow guiding events so that there was a Luthor and Brainiac of some sort. The existence of two Luthors coming from parallel worlds with very similar histories seemed to suggest that theory. After thirty seconds of studying the various knowledge on such subjects stored in the Collective he knew there was only one action he could implement.

"I must capture and study him."

"You can direct the drones from right here."

Something within himself did not like the sort of action. Was this pride? This sudden insistence that he must do it himself? It was so illogical. It was even worse that when he insisted on fighting Superman. With a feeling he identified as frustration, he considered turning off the emotion chip until a better time. But he knew he had to get a handle on these emotions. He concluded that there would always be something he'd have to deal with so he should just get on with it. "This must be done personally."

"I've already redirected twenty more drones to that location."

He looked at her. He could feel the lust from the emotion chip coursing through him. For a moment, he wondered if the emotion chip could make him feel love, and if it could, would that love be real, or merely just a program. "I'll be back." He turned and left.

She turned to watch as her drones were removing the amputated arm of Mr. Furious and were about to replace it with one of their prosthetic limbs. On the other side of him, the sailor Sinbad was having his eye removed and covered over by the Borg headgear. But it was the young woman named Maya that drew her attention. She was a shapechanger, which would prove to complicate any or all assimilation attempts. She ordered more tests to be done. Eager to learn, eager to overcome, those were the things she chose to aspire to. This is what the Borg was made to do.

OoOoOoOoO

The Founder brought her liquid form into one large mass in order to better communicate with her solid allies. "It is confirmed. Lore has been compromised again, this time with the Borg."

"That's too bad," commented Gul Dukat. The Cardassian had been resting against the warm cavern walls while the liquid shapeshifter did reconnaissance. Now he stretched his sore limbs so that he could be ready to take action if needed. "Lore was a good asset to the team."

"He still could be," said Captain Kirk as he considered something. "He's an android, so can we use some kind of device to blow him up? Maybe whoever created him kept a bomb inside him. I know I would."

Dukat looked at Kirk in surprise. He forgot from time to time that this Kirk in front of him was actually the Kirk from a mirror universe to his making the Earth man ruthless and diabolical instead of the honorable, trustworthy Kirk he had studied while learning about noteworthy persons of interest on alien worlds. "Taking into account the time we were with Lore, do you really think he would willing have an explosive device kept himself?"

Kirk snarled. "It was just a possibility."

Before another altercation could start, the Founder drew their attention to the returning of another member of their team, the Alpha Hirogen. The large alien had to bend low to get through the tunnel opening to the small alcove that the others had taken residence in. Once he was able to stretch to his full height he gave his report. "We have company coming. I could identify three of them as members of the team we are working against."

Kirk chuckled evilly. "So their numbers have thinned some, too. That's good to know."

"Who did you see?" asked Dukat, who was more concerned with who they would be facing.

The Alpha Hirogen held the Cardassian's eyes. He was not used to working as equals with members of his own species, let alone inferior aliens. "Picard. Sisko. Ro. And there was a fourth member in a black outfit who seemed unusually agile."

"We could use this to our advantage," stated the Founder.

"What do you have in mind?" asked Dukat.

"Simply this: we use them as a diversion to make our own attack right to the heart of the Borg, the Borg Queen herself."

"I like it!" Kirk said, eager for action.

"It makes sense," admitted Dukat. "How far behind you are they?" he asked the Alpha Hirogen.

"Three or four minutes."

The Founder morphed her body into that of a table with three dimensional map showing all the tunnels and caverns she had explored. "The X is where we are now," she explained. "The yellow highlighted tunnels are ones only I can fit through. The blue tunnels are only large enough for Kirk and Dukat. The green tunnels are large enough to accommodate the Alpha Hirogen."

"What are all the red tunnels then? They could work for us. They led right up to the Borg Queen," asked Kirk. Both Dukat and the Alpha Hirogen shook their heads at the man's density.

"That's because there are Borg drones all throughout that area, you thick-headed solid," reprimanded the female Changeling.

Kirk grit his teeth but said nothing. Dukat tried not to smirk.

It was the Alpha Hirogen who had the answer. "If we stay here, and let the Starfleet team pass us by, we could cut back through this tunnel to this cavern here, and come up nearly in back of where the Borg forces will be rallying."

"It could work except for the fact that the Starfleet team would have to pass right by us." Dukat shook his head.

"I could take the shape of a rock wall at the entrance to this alcove," said the Founder. "No one would know the difference as they pass in the tunnel. But they are unlikely to come in here without scanning as they go. I would not stand up to that kind of scrutiny."

The Alpha Hirogen took a device from his belt, flipped it open and began typing on a small keyboard. "I believe I have an answer." He put the device on the floor and stepped back. A beam of purple light did a quick sweep of the area and then focused its efforts on the entrance of the cavern which suddenly filled with rock.

"How'd you do that?" demanded Kirk.

"Holographic technology," Dukat answered. "But Sisko and the others would be able to detect it."

"No," replied the Alpha Hirogen. "This device is a couple of steps beyond the holographic technology I was introduced to in the Voyager. It doesn't make large hard light pro-"

"How new is this technology?" interrupted the Founder.

The Alpha Hirogen scowled. But knew he had to try work with these lesser lifeforms. "Testing was complete a little of ten days ago."

"Ten days!" she exclaimed. "Turn it off, you fool! Turn it off now!"

"You dare?" growled the Hirogen.

Realization dawned on Dukat. "She's right! Turn it off! Quick!"

"The Borg are constantly searching for new technology!" explained the female shapeshifter. "If they detect this thing of yours-"

The wall behind them began to heat up as something or someone made an opening.

"Too late!" Kirk began shooting at the back wall while Dukat vaporized the holoprojector that was blocking them in.

**AUTHOR's NOTES**

_Sorry for the delay. Lots of things going on from dealing with some kind of flu-diarrhea bug with the kids, death in the family and some computer difficulties. Ah, real life. No wonder we like to turn to fantasy for a time._

**Character Roll Call:**

Cha-Ka – from the TV series The Land Of The Lost

The Builder – from the TV series The Land Of The Lost / The Other – from the TV series Doctor Who

The Master – from the TV series Doctor Who

The Doctor – from the TV series Doctor Who

Kong – from the movies King Kong

Mr. Incredible – from the movie The Incredibles

Brainiac – from DC Comics

Borg Queen – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation

Lore – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation

Data – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation

Jake Foley – from the TV series Jake 2.0

Alexei Luthor – from DC Comics – Earth-2

Lex Luthor – from DC Comics – Earth-1

The Doctor – from the TV series Doctor Who

Clark Kent – from the TV series Smallville

Lana Lang – from the TV series Smallville

Chloe Sullivan – from the TV series Smallville

Lex Luthor / Brainiac – from the TV series Smallville

Mr. Furious – from the movie Mystery Men

Sinbad – from the TV show Sinbad

Maya – from the TV show Space: 1999

Founder / Changeling / female shapeshifter – from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Gul Dukat – from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Captain James T. Kirk of the Mirror Universe – from Star Trek: The Original Series

Alpha Hirogen – from Star Trek: Voyager

Captain Jean-Luc Picard – from Star Trek: The Next Generation

Captain Benjamin Sisko – from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Ro Laren – from Star Trek: The Next Generation


	40. Chapter 40

**A TANGLED WEB 8 Chapter 40**

The Master took several deep breaths while hiding behind a large boulder. He had managed to get away from the treacherous Decepticons, though in truth it wasn't them that he feared. Somehow Megatron had survived the Master's attempt to use him as an example by way of crushing him until he was just a mutilated square box, and had his sentient programming uploaded into his subordinate, Starscream's body. And while the Decepticons could not harm the renegade time-lord thanks to the geis put on them by the entity known as Q2, Megatron had managed to bring in an outsider to kill him in his stead, which the Master couldn't help but to consider it to be a masterful stroke of brilliance. And while he could see that he was clear of this assassin, he didn't know how many others there might be out there waiting for their shot at him, and that wasn't counting the Borg of the so-called heroes side of combatants.

He couldn't help but to think of Gallifrey in it's golden age. He had been so close to his goal only to have it dashed away by the Doctor's minions, not to mention bloody Rassilon himself; it irked him to no end. Therefore when he spied the young boy standing on a hill with a short, hairy humanoid companion watching the battles being played out on the valley floor, he was somewhat taken aback. He could tell instantly that this youth was a Gallifreyan, and most likely the very one who built this small microverse.

_Perhaps there is still a way to come out on top_, he thought. Thinking himself in the clear, he made a mad dash for the hill.

OoOoOoO

Megatron scanned the field of battle. Wherever the Master was now, he seemed to have made a clean getaway. He clenched his fist in fury. If he didn't find the Master soon, he was going to take that damn Klingon Martok, who Megatron had brought in to assassinate the Master, and slowly crush him to death for letting the renegade time-lord getting away. As far as Megatron was concerned, the explosion that had knocked Martok off his feet was hardly a good excuse for not killing the Master the moment he had the opportunity.

Rumble, the diminutive Decepticon, came up to his leader from behind. "Uh, Starscream, Hook wants-"

Megatron whipped around, striking the small robot, knocking him across the ground. "Never call me by that name!" he roared.

"S-Sorry, Megatron," sputtered the struck robot, worried about any further attacks.

They were all still getting used to the idea of Megatron inhabiting Starscream's body. They all had questions about how that had happened, but were fearful of what that answer might be, or that he might just kill them for asking. The voice was clearly Megatron's, as was the fiery temper and the scowl that went with it. Clearly, Starscream was not with them anymore.

"Hook,-" Rumble began, hoping to redirect the stronger robot's attention elsewhere. "-says Bonecrusher is in dire need of repair and has asked to talk to you."

Megatron grimaced at this news, but turned to Soundwave. "Let me know the instant you spot the Master."

"As you command, Megatron," stated Soundwave, as he continued his sensory search for the evil time-lord. He looked down at General Martok, who was suturing a cut he'd received on his cheek. "Stay with Soundwave and be ready. You may not fail me a second time."

The Klingon only gave the towering robot a glance before returning to his wound. Silently, Megatron had to remind himself why he didn't just kill the proud flesh and blood being, and then stormed away to hear what his repair technician Hook, had to tell him.

As Megatron stomped over, the Constructicons that had been watching over Bonecrusher's repairs moved aside to give him room. He could see that all the Constructicons bore electrical burn marks on their outer casings due to their battle with the giant, purple creature called Validus who had blasted them with mental lightning from his brain even as he struck them harder than any of them had ever been hit before. Bonecrusher, who transformed into Devastator's left arm had taken the brunt of the battle.

"Well?" demanded Megatron. While the Decepticons were not currently engaged in fighting at the moment, there was combat going on all around them, that could include them at any time; so Megatron wasn't about to waste any of this breathing time that they had.

Hook looked up from his instruments that he had connected to the still, but lightly sparking prone form of Bonecrusher. "It's not good. If I was in my lab, maybe, but here…?" He shook his head. "The best we can hope for is to let him go inert and bring him with us. Then maybe…just maybe I can get him going again once I have the right equipment."

The Decepticon leader studied his options. He considered the option of abandoning Bonecrusher, and then returning later to claim his body for repair later. But with the Borg wandering around, they were sure to salvage him. He didn't want to leave anyone behind to guard Bonecrusher's body, as they would be vulnerable to being captured by the Borg as well, as well as weakening the forces he took with him. If they took Bonecrusher with them, they risked damaging him further, as well as slowing them down and making them more vulnerable. He also had to consider the fact that Bonecrusher was usually an asset. He was a strong Decepticon in his own right, obedient, too. And when he merged with the other Construticons, he became a part of Devastator, a powerful giant robot that was an incredible asset to have during a battle. Megatron wasn't even sure if the Constucticons could even form Devastator without Bonecrusher to be part of it.

"We shall take him with us. When we can, we will try to revive him."

That cheered up the Constructicons some. The Constructicon Long Haul quickly transformed his body into a dump truck so the others could load Bonecrusher's body onto him. Scrapper and Scavenger took arms while Mixmaster and Hook grabbed hold of his legs and raised him up so that Long Haul could drive under and position himself to receive Bonecrusher's body for transport. Hook used some spare wire to tie Bonecrusher's arms and legs together so that they wouldn't drag against the ground while Long Haul drove him. Mixmaster transformed and took the lead in front of Long Haul in preparation to leaving.

Ravage, a small animalistic Decepticon that shared a bond to Soundwave, growled to get Megatron's attention. Knowing it must be important, Megatron left the Constructicons to their dealings. Blitzwing and Skywarp were already there when he approached Soundwave.

"Where is he?" Megatron demanded.

Soundwave pointed across the valley where a small figure ran toward a hill while avoiding any skirmishes. "There."

"At last! Vengeance!" He turned to Martok, who had finished treating his own minor injury. "Ready yourself, Klingon. And do not fail me again!"

The Klingon general trained his one good eye up at the towering robot. "Get me near him and your vengeance will be done." Martok was liking Megatron less and less the longer he was in his company. But the Master was working forQ2 as his agent on this strange field of battle, Martok felt it was his duty to make sure that the Master was eliminated from the equation. He was sure that once Megatron had no need of him, he'd either be cast aside or possibly eliminated. But as a veteran of numerous battles, Martok wasn't giving up his chances of survival just yet. "I'll do my part. Just lead the way."

oOoOoOo

"They're coming this way?" The metallic humanoid adjusted his optic sensors. "Why?" he said, wondering at his good fortune. Looking around he spotted a man running to the base of the hill nearby and start climbing. "The Master, of course!"

He tightened his grip on the laser weapon he had found. It wouldn't be very effective against his intended target, but it was all he had for now. And since this may likely be the last chance he'd have to get revenge, he'd have to risk it. "You will rue the day you stole my body from me, Megatron. For Starscream will have his revenge!" Starscream, inhabiting the T-800 unit that Megatron had originally been using before he appropriated Starscream's body, raced around the hill to come up the far side, hopefully before Megatron and the rest of the Decepticons caught up with the diabolical time-lord, the Master.

OoOoOoO

There was an impromptu war council of nine individuals that gathered near the trauma center near the TARDIS. The giant foot of Devastator had created a deep ditch there so the group had decided to use it to take refuge from the fighting while staying out of the way while the wounded were evacuated onto the TARDIS. The nine were wary, not just from the battle with the Borg, but because everyone in the meeting considered at least a few of the others as potential adversaries. Professor X did what he could to allay those feelings without actually affecting their decisions. The time-lord known as the Doctor had his own way of dealing with that problem.

"Jelly babies anyone?"

Professor X accepted one to be polite, but the others ignored the colorful, sugary treats.

With a toothy grin, the Doctor stashed his jelly baby supply back into one of his jacket pockets. "Now the problem we have to deal with is the Borg. And in order to do that we must work together."

"With that monster?" spat the Shredder. "His kind attacked both of our forces! Even maiming me!" He was practically shouting as he held up what remained of his bandaged right hand.

Beside the maimed man, Riddler folded his hands across his chest and leaned back on the broken stump he was sitting on with a smirk on his face, amused at the melodrama. In lieu of the disappearance of Lex Luthor and Brainiac, he had been quickly selected by the villainous telepaths to step to the position of leadership for the majority of super-villains due to his remarkable intelligent mind as well as lack of fighting abilities. It made sense to keep him off the battle lines while keeping him telepathically aware of where everyone one was and how things were going. Over all, the Riddler was enjoying the experience even if it was giving him a nasty headache. "He and his people just starting slaughtered us; I say we just do him in here and now before they turn on us again."

"I agree!" stated Zandor of the Herculoids, whose angry visage was apparent to everyone. His son, Dorno, had been shot, and even though he was recovering nicely and being cared for in the TARDIS, the tension was wearing on him. His companions, the Herculoids, had also suffered in the fighting. Zok's wing was damaged, but the space dragon was safe and wouldn't be doing any flying for a while. Gloop, a large protoplasmic creature, had suffered a tear to it's membrane lining, while defending Zandor. Normally, such a wound would normally not be a problem for Gloop, except that the Yautja weapon that had cut into it had been able to inflict more damage than normal. As it was, Gloop had encapsulated itself within a hardened shell while healing. How long that would take Zandor did not know, but took comfort in the fact that Gloop was resting under the watchful eye of it's younger sibling Gleep inside the TARDIS. The massive stone simian Igoo, enraged by the suffering his adopted family had undergone, was now on a rampage, slaying drones wherever possible. Zandor only left him to come to this meeting when the Thing said he'd watch over Igoo.

"We stand on a battlefield," spoke up Enik, an ancestor to the Sleestak due to time travel, and their only representative at this impromptu council. "Many things have been done by each side to the other. We need to look past that if we are going to consolidate our forces and overcome the Borg."

The Doctor decided to enter the fray, trusting in his winning personality to keep him safe. "The team I brought and those abandoned by the Master were able to unite for fend off the Borg; and were able to look past the dead and wounded for the sake of survival. I say we do it once more."

"You say that because you didn't lose anyone to these butchers!" Zandor practically shouted, spit flying. He had his hand on his knife handle, ready to pull it out of it's sheath and bury it in the alien's heart at any hint of duplicity. "One of his cloaked hunters killed my good friend Tundro, and cut off his head for a trophy!"

"That is most unfortunate," Enik acknowledged. "But I, too, have suffered loss." He waved a clawed hand out at the battlefield. "The majority of the Borg drones fighting us are of my people, the Sleestak. And yet I must encourage us to fight against them, to kill them even, in order to ensure the survival of those Sleestak that remain free."

The Yautja hunter stood still as he studied these potential prey, some of whom he considered would make remarkable trophies. Even now openly in their presence seeking to join with them in their endeavors against the hive-like cybernetic beings they called the Borg, his predatory instincts still regarded them as something to be hunted. Fortunately, he was staying true to his resolve to work with these beings and that the telepathic cripple in the chair was vouching for his intentions. But what he found the most annoying was their constant chatter with each other when there was fighting to be done. They needed a pack leader, but he knew they would not accept him for the position, so he had to wait for one of them to assert themselves into the position. If it was a good choice, he would consider submitting to the leader's command.

The half-Romulian Sela spoke from where she sat next to her teammate Khan Noonien Singh. "There can't be many more of them left. Some of them have all ready been killed so how much help can we really expect from them?"

"He carries a powerful explosive device on his arm," Professor X calmly announced.

A smirk appeared on Khan's face as Zandor and Shredder both took a step back. "What does he plan to do with this explosive?" Khan asked, sharing a look with Sela.

"To get to the center of the drone forces and explode it."

"So he's suicidal then?" Shredder considered this bit of information. "That would definitely work to our advantage. It would take the Borg and him out of the equation at the same time."

"Why?" It was more of a demand to know than a question. Zandor needed to know what drove these aliens to do the things he'd seen them do. He was privy to dozens of alien cultures, but none matched the gruesomeness he's experienced today. But what he most wanted was to make some kind of sense out of Tundro's murder.

The Doctor was about to insist that they move on, but Professor X motioned for him to stop before he began. Charles Xavier sighed. "It's difficult trying to correctly translate the thoughts of an alien I've never encountered before. His brain is organized differently and he has some senses that I've never encountered before. His language, vocally is very different from ours, but he has managed to accumulate a small phrase association translation guide using the English language that I've accessed that has helped in communicated somewhat."

"Phrase association translation guide for the English language?" asked Sela. "So he has interacted with Humans before."

"You could say that," Prof. X said. "Actually it is their custom normally to stalk their prey, learn their habits, and some of their language, making sure they are worthwhile and dangerous enough before going in for the kill."

"Why is it willing to be blown up in an explosion?" demanded Zandor, bringing the discussion back to his question.

Professor X concentrated as he traveled as quietly as he could through the alien neuron pathways. "He's old. His reflexes are slowing. Arthritis can be felt in most of his joints. And most of the young hunters he came to train are now dead. Earlier, when he realized that the Borg were the greater threat, he tried to convince his leader, who was his friend, to join us, but was rebuked and they parted ways. Now they are dead."

"How many more are there?" brought up Khan.

"I think at least two, maybe three. They are young and inexperienced. One was wounded and had to be taken back to their space ship."

"They have a space ship?" Shredder said with surprise. "Then we can-"

"It's not working right now," the telepath interjected before Shredder could run with his ideas of escape and leaving them all behind. "Their vessel was damaged upon entering this microverse. They aren't even sure they can leave even if they get their ship up and running."

"And why should we believe him?" demanded Shredder.

The Riddler tut-tutted. "I think the better question is, 'When can an enemy be considered a friend? Hmm?" He looked around to see if there were any takers.

The Doctor, having been patient, adjusted his scarf. "While the enemy of our enemy may not be our friend, which I believe you were implying, Riddler, but they could at least be a temporary ally."

""Yes, an ally," nodded Professor X. "That said, I do have to confess that I do not like the idea of sending someone out to blow themselves up. I'm sure that we could easily put something together to detonate the bomb he has, then have one of the suitable powered folk either throw it or fly it over the main body of incoming drones so that it falls on them."

"That will put even more lives at risk." Sela shook her head. She was finding this bald human to be more and more like a Captain Picard doppelganger in his thinking. "The longer we wait the stronger the Borg become. Besides, no one is going to trust this maniac trophy hunter in our ranks, so if he wants to blow himself while taking out good chunk of those Borg drones attacking us, I say let him do it."

"Everyone should be given a chance to change," Professor X insisted, looking at her pointedly with sadness in his eyes.

She squirmed a little inside as she remembered the '_talk_' she had had with him earlier. She hated the conflicting feelings she felt when she looked at him. She was pretty sure he wasn't using his abilities to influence her, but the very knowledge that he knew how she felt left her feeling exposed. She was glad that Holly's father had taken her away with all the other minors. The teenage girl had turned out to have a disturbing influence on her.

Khan looked from her to the handicapped man, knowing something had passed between them, but what exactly he couldn't be sure.

The Riddler swore to something he had been telepathically alerted to. "Damn it! We just lost Felix Faust to one of their stun beams! The magicians are our best weapon against the Borg and we've only got a few of them left."

The Doctor nodded. "Then we should start by taking a look at-"

"We can't waste any more time in planning," snapped the Riddler. "Now is the time to act!" With his mind he reached out to one of his telepathic aides. _Hector, you need to do this quick! Esper Lass and Doctor Psycho, block Professor X for a minute. But take it easy on him. We aren't turning on these heroes just yet. We still need them if we are going to take down the Borg._

Jerking as if he had sat on an electrical wire, Professor X found himself in the midst of a mental assault, nearly falling out of his chair.

"Professor?" Sela called out in concern as she went to his side. Enik, who had been standing next to the wheelchair-bound man, placed one of his crab clawed hands on his shoulder only to receive a massive jolt through his limited telepathy, and fell down to the ground nearly unconscious.

Meanwhile, Hector Hammond had delivered his mental instructions to the powerful Black Adam. Black Adam dropped the nearly disintegrated large dinosaur rib bone that he had been using as he plowed through the Borg forces, and flew back to his base. Landing only for a second, he batted Zandor away and scooped up the large humanoid alien from behind before taking off into the air again.

Professor X, being mentally battered, was only able to give a weak cry of warning to the others. Most combatants didn't even register the telepathic warning. But those used to being in telepathic communication with him, his X-Men, were more receptive to his thoughts. Nightcrawler was the first to respond. In a small explosion of dark smoke and the smell of brimstone, Nightcrawler had teleported onto the dark Marvel's back. Black Adam shrugged, sending the X-Man flying. Nightcrawler tried connecting with Black Adam again but the flying villain took to an erratic flying plan making it near impossible to gauge where he would be at at any given time.

The elder Yautja hunter understood enough of what was going on to know that he was being brought to where the largest group of the cybernetic entities were. Despite being tossed around, he managed to engage the self-destruct device mounted on his wrist computer, which began a countdown. He released the catches on mask, and tossed it down to the ground.

Black Adam looked over at what his passenger was doing, eyes opening in astonishment at the four mandibles that were around the alien's mouth, watching as they twitched about making clicks and chirps in some alien language. The Egyptian villain remembered himself, putting the sneer back on his face. "You are one ugly m-"

Something crashed into him from above, knocking his passenger free. Shaking his head for a second, he glanced down to see one of the X-Men known as the Angel grab the alien hunter by one of his arms. Before he could react, he was struck from behind, sending him head over heels. Though not injured, he was quite pissed. Spinning around, he managed to catch a large glass-like ball projectile with a Human skull in the middle of it. "What kind of sorcery is this?"

The magical glass-like bowling ball suddenly jumped out of his hands and came down smashing on top of Black Adam's head.

The elder Yautja hunter didn't know what discord was going on in the group, but he knew he was now headed the wrong way. Extending the wrist blades mounted on his forearm gauntlet, he lashed out, clipping some of Angel's left wing causing him to painfully spiral downwards. The Yautja looked at the time remaining on his wrist computer, and then let go, choosing to fall the rest of the way.

He landed almost on top of a Sleestak, and reacted instantly by cutting it in half with his wrist blades. Another nearby drone turned to him, and the Yautja fired one of his Smart Discs out in a wide circular arc cutting down seven drones before one of them neutralized it. Straightening up, his mandibles quivered in irritation as he felt something give in his right knee. He only had a little time left, and he was determined to make the most of them, and get even closer to the where most of the drones were. Using his Netgun, he fired off a quick succession of shots to incapacitate as many drones in his way as he limped forward. Then he turned to his Plasma cannon to clear the way. Seeing more of their laser targeting lights turning his way, he used his Plasma cannon to blast out a quick foxhole to jump in before the drones could stun him.

But before his feet hit the bottom of the foxhole, he was grabbed from behind and pulled up.

"I don't mind you digging your own grave," barked Black Adam who had returned for him, flying him to his original destination. "But Hammond said it should be right over-"

BOOM!

**AUTHOR's NOTES**

_And I finish his chapter with a bang._

_I've been a bit down lately, but I managed to push my way through to finish this chapter. And I am getting closer to the end, so yea! This series has been a long time in the writing – since about 97 or 98, I think. And I've loved it. But I am also looking forward to starting other stories, too._

**Character Roll Call in order of appearance or mention:**

The Master – from the TV show Doctor Who

Megatron – from the cartoon Transformers

Starscream – from the cartoon Transformers

Q2 – my own creation – a rival for the Q from the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation

Rassilon – from the TV show Doctor Who (mentioned only)

Borg – from the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation

The Builder – from the TV show Land Of The Lost (mentioned only)

The Other - from the TV show Doctor Who (mentioned only)

Cha-Ka – from the TV show Land Of The Lost (mentioned only)

General Martok – from the TV show Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Rumble – from the cartoon Transformers

Hook – from the cartoon Transformers

Bonecrusher – from the cartoon Transformers

Soundwave – from the cartoon Transformers

Validus – from DC Comics

Devastator – from the cartoon Transformers

Long Haul – from the cartoon Transformers

Scrapper – from the cartoon Transformers

Scavenger – from the cartoon Transformers

Mixmaster – from the cartoon Transformers

Ravage – from the cartoon Transformers

Blitzwing – from the cartoon Transformers

Skywarp – from the cartoon Transformers

T-800 (inhabited by Starscream) from the movie The Terminator

Professor X – from the movie X-Men

The Doctor (4th regeneration) from the TV show Doctor Who

Shredder – from the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Riddler – from DC Comics / from the cartoon Challenge Of The Super Friends

Lex Luthor – from DC Comics / from the cartoon Challenge Of The Super Friends

Brainiac – from DC Comics / from the cartoon Challenge Of The Super Friends

Yautja hunter – from the movie Predator

Zandor – from the cartoon The Hurculoids

Dorno – from the cartoon The Hurculoids (mentioned only)

Zok – from the cartoon The Hurculoids (mentioned only)

Gloop – from the cartoon The Hurculoids (mentioned only)

Gleep – from the cartoon The Hurculoids (mentioned only)

Igoo – from the cartoon The Hurculoids (mentioned only)

The Thing – from the movie Fantastic Four (mentioned only)

Enik – from the TV show Land Of The Lost

Tundro – from the cartoon The Hurculoids (mentioned only) (dead)

Sleestak – from the TV show Land Of The Lost

Sela – from the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation

Khan Noonien Singh – from the TV show Star Trek

Captain Jean-Luc Picard – from the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation (mentioned only)

Holly Marshall – from the TV show Land Of The Lost

Felix Faust – from DC Comics

Hector Hammond – from DC Comics

Esper Lass – from DC Comics

Doctor Psycho – from DC Comics

Black Adam – from DC Comics

Angel – from the movie X-Men

The Bowler – from the movie Mystery Men


	41. Chapter 41

**A TANGLED WEB 8 Chapter 41**

by Ordinaryguy2

For those of you who don't know, I'm going to have surgery soon. If you can help, please donate some funds to the surgery I am about to have at helpcharlie dot weebly dot com  
It's to correct the screwed up vasectomy a urologist did on me over 4 years ago leaving me in freakish chronic pain. I'm talking pain like electrical current, or a bee hive or like you were horribly bruised in the testicles. Walking is painful as is driving due to vibrations and movement. I literally feel like I have been kicked in the groin repeatedly everyday to the point that I become nauseous and cannot enjoy anything going on around me. One of my friends was serving in the military in Iraq, and discussed my pain situation to his team. They all agreed they would rather lose an arm or leg than have my kind of injury. I'm stressing this because this surgery will give me back my life, but as I have not been able to work for the last 4 years our funds are low. If you can help by donating at least $5 or 10 or more it would be very helpful and we would be very grateful.  
Please look on the .com site, and then click on the word 'surgery' under the list 'Funds raised will be used to pay for' (1). That should bring you to helpcharlie dot weebly dot com backslash the-surgery dot html. At the bottom of this page is a video of the surgery I need and you will know that no man would ever have this surgery done on them unless it was absolutely necessary. One of the reviews on the video was, "Dear God, I hope that man is dead!" So it is rather gruesome. Just giving you fair warning. But to me it will be a dream come true because I will have my life back.  
Thanks for reading this. And please pray for my family and I as we undergo this life changing event to get me up and going again.  
Charlie

After that little note, on with the story.

Lex Luthor almost felt as if he were paradoxically fighting himself as he grappled with his opponent that somewhat bore an uncanny resemblance to himself. That, in and of itself, was not the strangest things in his life recently, but it sure rivaled it. It started out at a picnic with him, Lana Lang, Chloe Sullivan and Clark Kent just outside of Smallville. They were interrupted by the arrival of a bushy haired humanoid male alien and a Human woman in a leather hunting outfit traveling in a machine that could span time and space but resembled an old British phone booth. The wide-eyed, teeth gleaming alien was looking for an ally in helping to fight against the Borg on a parallel Earth in another dimension, specifically he was requesting the aid of the formidably powered Kryptonian, an alien that had arrived to Earth as a baby, specifically and surprisingly it turned out he was looking for Clark Kent. It had been quite the revelation, and took a moment to take in. Lana's parents had been killed in a meteor shower from pieces of Clark's detonated planet that had followed after his escape rocket. Chloe had been trying to piece together all they strange happenings on her '_Wall of_ _Weird_' in her news office at their high school, and all that time, unknown to her, her good friend Clark was the key to it all. Lex had been the most understanding; being a Luthor he was used to having to keep important bits of information secret, no matter how much he had wished otherwise. They had agreed to go with the strange alien that only answered to the name Doctor, even the two girls.

They arrived in the middle of a small diner only to run into a man who looked just like his father Lionel Luthor, who claimed to be the Devil himself. There had also been some angels, the companion of one, a grizzled ex-cop named Mark Gordon, had been assigned by God to guide Lex. They were two very different people, but Mark talked freely of his experiences as a police officer as well as his adventures with the angel Jonathan. He was dismayed when he learned that in this parallel world he was a comic book super-villain while Clark, who was the best friend he had ever had, was his arch foe, a superhero called Superman. Lex had begun reevaluating his life when he was abruptly captured by the Borg and turned into a drone. He had been fortunate when an explosion along the Borg Collective had managed to free him from control, and he'd been able to take over a small splinter of the remaining Collective that he was still attached to, while renaming himself 'Brainiac'. He'd helped to defeat the remaining Borg influences there and also bring a new volcano in downtown Seattle under control. It was after he'd decommissioned most of his drones, something Clark had made him promise to do, that the Doctor had returned to ask for his help.

He'd managed to fight his way across the battlefield in an effort to find and take out the Borg Queen, losing four of his eight drones he had arrived with. But he had been able to inject his own nanites into six Sleestak drones, subjecting them to his will and letting him download information of the Borg forces and also the history and knowledge of the Sleestak. Now he faced something else he hadn't expected. He was grappling with the green-skinned android known as Brainiac- the Brainiac that he'd learned and read about in the first universe he'd faced the Borg. This Brainiac had been brought here by the Master, and was now fighting on the side of the Borg. This Brainiac was an actual super-villain that had faced Superman and numerous other heroes time and time again. Despite all that, Lex was loving the challenge.

Lex pulled Brainiac to the side so that one of his drones could have a clean shot at one of the android's posse, when an explosion on the battlefield behind them knocked them off their feet.

Shaking off the effects of the blast, Lex started an immediate diagnostic on himself and discovered to minor breaks in his right arm, which his internal nanites had automatically began repairing. Next, he did a quick scan around himself and determined he had at least 4.6 seconds before he himself would be in danger from Brainiac and the Borg Queen's forces again. That done, he checked his own drone team, learning that one of his newly acquired Sleestak drones had sustained a fatal head injury and five others had received similar injuries to the one's he had obtained and had already begun repairs. Three of his other drones that had been partially shielded from the blast used the chaos as an opportunity to inject more of Luthor's special encrypted nano-probes into three of the Borg Queen's drones, two more Sleestak and an alien super-villainess known as Queen Bee, effectively overriding the Borg Collective's control and placing them under his control.

Seeing the android Brainiac picking himself off the ground, Lex raised his prosthetic arm and fired a beam at him. A slight look of annoyance crossed his face after seeing his attack bounce off an invisible force field around Brainiac's body. His optic sensors told him that the energy signature of Brainiac's force shield was of a different variety than that used by the Borg drones.

"You didn't think I would make it that easy for you, did you?" the green android said, with a sneer he had learned to mirror from his universe's Lex Luthor. Kneeling, he brought up his ray gun and fired.

Lex tried to roll out of the way, but was struck with an unusual energy beam in the chest. For the first couple of nanosecond, nothing seemed to happen. Then suddenly everything seemed to enlarge around him. _No_, he realized, _everything isn't growing. I'm shrinking!_" When the reduction process concluded, Lex determined he was now nearly two inches tall. After internally rectifying his immediate vertigo issues, he stood up while his internal sensors checked everything like mad. He looked up as a shadow loomed over him.

"You are not so high and mighty now," Brainiac said, looking down at Lex. The android put an appropriate menacing grin on his face as he took a flat piece of glass from his belt that folded out into a glass case. "And now I'll add a third Luthor to my collection," he said as he knelt down to scoop Lex up from the ground.

"You forgot something!" Lex shouted to be heard. "I still have my drones!" The drones in question had not been shrunk like Lex but were still under Lex's control. And as if to emphasize his point, the drones began a barrage of blasts at Brainiac, striking his force shield and driving him back.

Lex had the closest one of his drones come over to pick him up, which just happened to be the drone made from the super-villainess Queen Bee. He had her bring him up to her shoulder where he used a tight laser beam from his prosthetic arm to cut a small opening in the fabric of her suit. Then he crawled into the small pocket using it as a safe place from which he could observe.

Brainiac had brought his own drones back into play, but not before Lex made an observation and confirmed it through the knowledge gained by some of his new Sleestak drones. Lex had all his drones fire devastating blasts at the ground under and around Brainiac and his closest drones. Brainiac only had a second to react before rocky ground that the android had been standing on, crumbled away, causing him to fall down into the cave caverns below.

Lex nodded, leaning out of the pocket he was in, to try see, before switching to an optic connection of one of his drones. "It always comes down to location, location, location," he chuckled, as he watched some of the drones begin to climb out of the debris. Lex ordered his drones to fire down on beaten drones, taking down four before Brainiac had erected a invisible force field around them.

Lex found him and his drones being pushed back against the drones still topside; they still outnumbered his by four to one, and Lex had his forces retreat step by step until they came to some large boulders that provided them with cover. He was trapped for the moment, so with part of his consciousness he glanced around to see what could be used to get him back on top of the fight. On the other side of the ridge, Lex could see the hybrid leader of the Visitors, a pretty blond named Elizabeth, using her powers and leading her Visitor troops, to force entry into one of the tunnels that led into the lower caverns, in the hope that they can find the Borg Queen and end all this fighting. From his knowledge gained from one of the Sleestak drones he had confiscated, he knew that there was a tunnel that connected to where Elizabeth was trying to go, but the tunnel he wanted to access would bring them closer to their goal. The Borg were having to divide their forces in order to kept the Doctors forces out of the tunnels, which Lex believed would give him more favorable odds in succeeding. In his mind, or group minds, Lex was sure that he would be the one to stop the Borg. He had the knowledge, he had the power, and he was a Luthor. And Luthors don't back down to anyone.

As his drones pressed forward, trying to wedge past the Borg loyal drones at the tunnel entrance, Lex looked back at the fighting Visitors. There he saw Elisa Maza, the Human mate to the Gargoyle Goliath, was using what she had called an alchemy gun to transform drones in her way into various elements or compounds. He watched as she did a rapid fire at a cluster of drones turning them into statues made of gold, lead, iron, tin and platinum while the one turned into mercury splatted onto the ground slowly oozing away to the lowest depression that happened to be an old tyrannosaurus rex footprint. Ham Tyler and Hannibal Smith covered her as they moved forward. Such a weapon was incredible, and the uses could be near limitless, and Lex made it a priority to analyze the weapon when the hostilities were over.

He considered how the Borg might attempt to adapt to survive such a weapon, when to two drones came out of a hidden passageway in the rock wall near Elizabeth, stunning her from behind. Ham Tyler turned and fired his laser gun but the drones force fields had already adjusted to his weapon's energy setting, nullifying it's effect.

"Smith!"

Hannibal Smith was already diving for cover as he fired at the two Borg claimed Power Rangers with only a little of red and green of their uniforms visible. Using their power swords in their right hand, both drones blocked the deadly beams and continued forward.

Using the distraction from Smith, Ham Tyler ducked down behind what he would later learn was the leftover dinosaur corpse left over from some larger dinosaur's meal.

"Maza!" Smith called. "Take cover!"

Elisa Maza leapt behind her most recently transformed drones. It turned out to not be the wisest of moves as the drones she had transformed into metal had proven to have adapted somewhat to matter-transforming weapon. She just managed to see out of the corner of her eye the gold drone stiffly turning toward her, reaching out with it's one good hand. Her police officer instincts took over as she jumped back, and knocked into the tin drone that had been behind her. The tin drone moved a little slower as it went to capture her in his arms. She pushed hard causing it to fall back into the drone made out of lead. Seeing an opening, she leapt out of the cluster of transformed drones only to see the silvery pile of mercury low on the ground quickly following after her. Using the alchemy gun again, Maza fired twice at the rapidly gaining pile of mercury, changing part of it to magnesium and phosphorus. The phosphorus flared setting the magnesium off a bright flash as it quickly burned; the resulting heat caused the remaining mercury to react violently and out of control.

As Lex watched, Maza, Smith and Tyler continued to give a good account of themselves while Elizabeth and her remaining Visitor forces pushed further to gain entrance into the tunnel.

Lex frowned slightly. At the rate Elizabeth and her forces might beat him to the Borg Queen. While he knew that the objective of everyone was to defeat the Borg forces, Lex couldn't help but to want the decisive blow to be his. He also hoped to steal more knowledge from the Borg before shutting it down completely.

An eerie grinding noise began to fill the air, coming from everywhere and yet nowhere.

"I know that sound," Lex commented. And the familiar form of the TARDIS began to come into view as if to confirm his suspicions.

Lex and his drones continued to exchange blasts with the drones still serving the Borg Collective, even as he directed his newly appointed personal drone carrier over to the TARDIS.

The door to the TARDIS snapped open with a soft bang as a tall blondish haired man stepped out. Seeing the Queen Bee drone coming his way, the man almost pulled the door shut when Lex managed to get his attention.

"Wait!" Lex said, using Queen Bee's larynx to be heard. "I'm on your side!"

The man paused momentarily, and then noticed Lex's small form tucked into the outfit near the shoulder of Queen Bee's outfit. "There's something you don't see every day."

"Is one of the Doctors with you?" asked Lex.

The man grinned. "I am one of the Doctors."

Lex scanned the man with his optical Borg implant. "I don't recall seeing you or hearing of your description during the briefings the Doctors held. Which regeneration are you?"

The man smiled even more. "The eleventh, and in my opinion, probably the best. Of course, that's my opinion each time I regenerate."

Lex frowned, his information on the time-lords was relatively limited, and he had a strong desire to learn more about them. But he'd have to be satisfied by what knowledge he could gleam from him for now. "I thought only the first-through-tenth regenerations of the Doctor were involved in this."

"And by now that is what the Borg believes to be true, too. I'm here to catch them off guard with a group of specially selected fighters." Behind this new Doctor, Lex could see movement in the TARDIS as figures came forward. "I have gathered a team that should be rather effective to the drones at this point." A large red figure with an oddly shaped forehead and wearing a jacket elbowed his way past the Doctor, heading to some nearby protective covering so as to observe the Borg in action. Others followed after him to get a good look at their opponents.

"Hey," called back the large red man, "some of these drones are fighting each other; how are we supposed to know which of these cyber-geeks to take out?"

Lex sent a signal through his remaining drones, and a light blue aura appeared around them as part of their personal force shields. "The drones with the blue aura are controlled by me."

"That'll help some, but man are you outnumbered."

The Doctor stepped forward, bring the conversation back to him. "You see, the Borg are very logic oriented, so in order to keep them off balance I've chosen to bring opponents versed in things arcane. Then while the Borg are distracted, my secret weapon will infiltrate-"

A series of stun beams struck out at them, one striking the Doctor in the head.

Lex had the Queen Bee drone reach out and catch the time-lord, easing him to the ground. "The new Doctor is out. Anyone have any idea of how he wanted to do this?"

The large red man chuckled and looked back at Lex. "Piece of cake."

Lex felt his breath catch in his throat as he complete his scan of this man. He wore a massively sized gauntlet on his right hand, the metal of which defied analysis. The large round nubs on his forehead were actually horns that had been filed down. His density was incredible as was his internal temperature. He even had a forked tail. He was a demon, an actual infernal being. Lex shuttered. He hated the metaphysical. It messed with his understanding of everything; and if he couldn't understand something, then he couldn't control it. Lex shook his head. _I guess this is where Mark Gordon's faith comes in_, he thought. _But faith in a devil?_ That just didn't make sense to him. But he could see how that would mess with the Borg as they would have as much of a hard time trying to analyzing the red demon as he had; even more as Lex knew that being unable to determine what this demon was would take more and more of their focus while Lex knew when to quit and move on. For now at least.

Hellboy readied himself and then nodded to his partner Liz Sherman. "Ready, Liz?"

She nodded. Then raised herself up over the ridge of the ditch then we in and extended her arms. Fire flashed out frying two of the closest drones, while the rest had just enough time to augment their shields for protection.

Hellboy leapt forward into the fire, using it as a cover. He was knocked back by a series of blaster, proving the fire wall to be an ineffective cover. Picking himself up from where he had fallen, Hellboy shook his head. "Ok, maybe it's not a cakewalk after all."

"You think?" came the sarcastic reply from the dark-haired Liz. "Now follow me and I'll show you how to dance to the beat." She raced out, spraying fire at the drones.

"Liz!" Hellboy leapt up and charged after her into the fire left in her wake.

Abe Sapien, an aquatic humanoid of unknown origin and one of Hellboy's partners, rush to a nearby stream that was flowing into the hill, only to be struck down before he made it halfway there.

A raven-haired boy in his upper teens pointed his wand at the fallen form of one of their new teammates. "_Accio Abe_!" The fallen form of Abe Sapien was levitated off the ground by an unseen force and then quickly brought back to where he had just come from.

"We need to cover them!" shouted another of the new arrivals. He was older and dark-haired, but had an aura of deadly determination. From underneath his long coat he unfolded a device made of wood and metal that quickly snapped together into a crossbow. Van Helsing had always been sure to have weapons that he can use effectively within seconds in his battle against the evil supernatural. And while the Borg were not the supernatural in any sense, he had encountered them shortly after a group of them had been dimensionally transported to his world. And while he knew that crucifixes and holy water would not work on them (because he had tried that method), dynamite with short fuses fired by a crossbow worked quite well. "Down!" he instructed.

Everyone except for a bushy haired seventeen year old girl crouched down together until the aftermath of the explosion. "_Protego_!" she cried out while waving her wand in front of her, using her magic to form a transparent shield in front of them.

"Good thinking, Hermione," said the raven-haired young man.

"Thank you, Harry," she said with a smile. She glanced over at the still form just behind him. "How's Abe?"

Harry Potter glanced back at the amphibious man they had been introduced to an hour before in the TARDIS. "Stunned like the Doctor. I just wish I knew whether he would revive better here or if we should put him in the river."

Hermione Granger thought about it for a moment, and then pointed her wand at Abe. "_Aguamenti._" A strong stream of water poured out of the end of her wand onto Abe. His gills opened slightly, but other than that he showed no signs of reviving.

The bushy-haired witch bit her lip slightly. "I think he'll be all right. Let me see if I can revive him." Hermione pointed her wand at Abe and said, "_Enervate_." She frowned with concern that the reviving spell didn't appear to take affect. "That should have worked."

"How about if I spray him with water while you Enervate him again?" suggested the blond witch of their group.

Having no other ideas of her own, Hermione decided to try Luna Lovegood's advice. "Very well. Begin."

"_Aguamenti,_" said the blond witch, making sure to use the magically created water to soak Abe's mouth and gill areas.

Hermione waited a moment to let Abe good and wet before finally pointing her wand at the aquatic humanoid. Focusing more of her magic than she would normally use for such a mild spell, she said the magic words, "_Enervate_."

With a slight jerk, Abe snapped to awareness. "What has happened?"

"The Borg had you take a nap," Luna stated mildly. "I think they were going to use that opportunity to infest you with nargles. We'll have to inspect your ear canals later to make sure you won't contaminate anyone."

Hermione looked past Abe to the still form of the Doctor lying on the ground near the TARDIS. "Luna, make sure Abe is ok; I'm going to see if I can bring the Doctor around."

Luna nodded as her friend went to revive the time-lord, while she began explaining the dangers of unchecked nargles infestations to a confused Abe.

Van Helsing caused another large explosion, only this time another wizard by the name of Neville Longbottom used the Protego spell to protect them.

"I need one of those drones intact!" insisted a tall, thin, dark haired man in his 30's who had been in back of the group.

"Ill get you one," spoke a sixteen-year old blond. She aimed her wand over at some of the fighting drones, choosing one that was about to shoot Hellboy in the back. "_Accio drone_."

"Luna! Not yet!" Neville cried out.

The drone that Luna had selected was of Sleestak origin and was swiftly flying through the air toward them. Neville quickly fired a body-bind curse on the drone to incapacitate it before it could harm any of them.

"Nice shot, Neville."

"Thanks, Ginny," he responded to a redhead teenage girl who was also holding a wand, casting a protego shield charm to block any of beam weapons that the Borg used, but allowed Luna's captured drone to pass on through where she put it down near the older man and his female companion to examine.

"Everyone, body-bind and shield spells only," instructed Harry, the unofficial leader of the six students from Hogwarts. "We don't know if these Borg creatures can adjust to our magic, at least that is what the Doctor was hoping. But in case they can adapt, try to save our other spells for later."

"Accio should work if we don't use it on them, but on other things that can hurt them," added Hermione.

"Good point, thanks, Hermione," responded Harry.

Ginny Weasley dove forward and cast the shield charm. Van Helsing had moved out into the battlefield, taking refuge behind a large tree that the Borg were now turning to cinders. Instead Ginny's magic shield provided him with enough cover so that he was able to move on to sturdier shelter near some boulders.

Good one, Ginny," Harry said. "Now we are going to have to be in teams of two. Ginny and Luna. Hermione and Neville. And Ron's with me. Remember, one of you fires curses and hexes at the Borg, the other creates shields to protect you both. All right, guys, let's go do this."

Ron came over next to Harry. "So how do you want to handle this?"

A small horn interrupted Harry's train of thought. Reaching down into his pocket, he pulled out what appeared to be a small Volkswagen with a racing sticker with the number '53' on it's hood. Putting the car on the ground, he tapped it with his wand and stepped back as the car expanded to full size.

"Everything all right, Herbie?" Harry asked the car.

Herbie beeped his horn and then opened his two front doors.

Harry looked over at his redheaded friend. "Well, Ron, ready to go out for a ride?"

Ron Weasley gulped, but nodded.

Harry quickly jumped into his seat, but Ron was more reluctant. "You know, Harry, we've already done the whole racing around in a living car before in my father's enchanted Ford Anglia. And we barely made it out alive! Are you sure we should temp fate by doing it again?"

"We survived, didn't we? Besides, we have experience with living vehicles now."

"Experience? All we did last time was close the doors, roll up the windows and scream for our lives while that crazy car drove through the Forbidden Forest while we were being chased by hundreds of Acromantula!" Ron shivered at the thought of the giant spiders and how close they came to being captured and killed by them.

Harry grinned. "Yeah, experience. And this time, in between screams, we'll be firing hexes and shield charms." He added in a lower tone, "If you really don't want to go, I'm sure Ginny would love to take your place."

A look of horror crossed his friend's face, as if he would ever admit that his sister might be braver than he was. Resolving himself, he plopped himself down into the seat of the Volkswagen. "That wasn't very fair," he accused his friend even as Herbie connected their seatbelts and took off into the scarred battlefield.

They both cried out as Herbie ran over a drone as if it were a large speed bump followed by another drone bouncing off the hood. With their next breath, both young wizards cast body-binging curses out their windows just before screaming again as Herbie spun around and changed directions. Harry fired a curse while Ron cast a protego.

Herbie drove over to where a small tree was on it's side, aiming his right side tires to run up the tree. The result was Herbie tilted onto his left tires balancing carefully as he continued to drive on..

"Yaaaaaahhhhhh! I hate you, Harry!" bellowed Ron. "Now we are going to die and I haven't even proposed to Hermione yet! Now I'll never know if she would marry me!"

Harry had his hands pressed against the ceiling, trying to hold himself in place, but managed to spare his friend a quick smirk. "Well if it helps any, I asked Ginny to marry me last night!"

Ron looked over in shock. "You did? What did she say?"

Harry grinned. "She said yes, mate!"

Herbie landed hard onto two drones crushing them. Herbie moved to take off again but the two drone corpses kept the wheels from touching the ground.

Seeing something outside his window, Harry turned and pointed his wand, expecting a drone…but it was no such thing.

"PARDON ME," said skeletal figure in billowing black robes and holding a scythe. "HAVE YOU SEEN AN OLDER WIZARD RUNNING THROUGH HERE? HE'S ABOUT THIS TALL, HAS A THIN WISPY BEARD, AND A TALL, POINTED HAT WITH THE WORD '_WIZZARD_' SPELT ON IT WITH TWO 'Z'S."

Harry looked the personification of Death in the face. He could feel Herbie trembling, or maybe that was Ron. He gulped. "Uh, no. We just got here. Sorry."

Death shook his head looking at the ground. "PITY. OH WELL, I'M SURE I'LL SEE YOU AGAIN."

Death gave them a cherry wave and departed, while the two boys stared after it.

"Harry?" Ron said. "I know it didn't look like it, but doesn't whatever that was remind you…of a Grim?"

"No." Harry managed to say. "That's no Grim; that's a Reaper."

"Oh," Ron managed to say, not liking that answer either, or what it implied.

"C'mon," Harry said, opening his door. "Help me get Herbie off this Borg road-kill before the drones or the Reaper come back for us!"

Ron enthusiastically complied and opened his door as he wished to live a long life – at least a longer life – when something landed right at his door and shoved something at him, making him fall back roughly into the vehicle. Ron was about to scream in alarm when he noticed that whatever had been thrown on him was not an attacking drone, but instead it was an unconscious woman. After a quick second glance he realized it was Liz. "Harry!"

Harry was on the other side of Herbie pushing a lot of his magical energy into holding up a shield charm to keep the slowly swarming drones from stunning him. "Busy, Ron! Whatever it is, you are going to have to deal with it!"

"Uh," having never been in so much physical contact with a female before, wasn't sure what he should or shouldn't do in order to free himself from her being on top of him. Sitting up, he gently moved her aside (he had seen how much power she had and was going to do what ever he had to in order to not have her angry at him), he brought up his wand when he was able to look past her. Just outside the doorway was who Ron assumed was her boyfriend, the red demonic figure called Hellboy, who was using his gauntlet to block whatever shots came his way and using his supersized gun to fire back with.

"Take Liz and get her out of here!" commanded Hellboy, unable to even look back due to the intense Borg fire.

"We can't!" Ron yelled back. "Herbie's stuck on top of some drones!"

Hellboy muttered his frustration followed by a honking cry as one of the drones managed to shoot off one of Herbie's back fenders. "Don't fall apart on me just yet, Herbie. I'll get your wheels back on the ground; you get Liz to safety!"

Herbie honked his whole-hearted agreement and closed the door before Ron could protest, not that he was about to. As it was he was able to fire hexes through the open window.

"Ron!" yelled Harry as he closed his door from the outside. "Take over the shield charming, I'll cover your retreat!"

Ron was flustered. "How are you going to do that? For that matter, how am I going to do that? There are too many of them attacking! I can't cover every side! If you drop your shield, we are done for!"

"Damn it!" Hellboy growled, as he dropped the rear of Herbie. "Can you two keep these things from shooting me so I can free Herbie? I can't do it with these cyber-zombies hitting me in the backside every time I get a good grip up Herbie's bumper!"

"What we need is a distraction," Harry muttered. As if on cue, several of the drones attacking Harry seemed to convulse somewhat just before something made from the mucus inside their nasal cavities began to crawl out. Tiny, winged gargoyle-like creatures made of mucus then began to attack the faces of their former hosts with ferocious ferocity.

Harry glanced over to where his friends were still trying to hold back the Borg, he saw Ginny give him a quick salute with her wand before turning her infamous bat-bogey hex on more drones.

Keeping up the shield spell on his side of Herbie, Harry moved to the trunk of the vehicle. "Open up, Herbie." Once Herbie complied, Harry's hand whipped in and brought out his Firebolt broom, which he jumped on and flew up into the air even as he dropped his protego shield charms and switched to using body-bind curses, clearing a path for the Volkswagen.

Lex observed all these events through the eyes of the drones he controlled. Magic. Magic was something he just couldn't accept. He had heard it said that magic was just laws of nature or a form of superior technology that most people have not come to understand yet. No, Lex couldn't agree with that. Magic, whatever it was, didn't just bend the rules of physics, it broke them and remade those rules however it wanted. On the other hand, Lex knew that if he was having problems relating to magic, the Borg must be even more so.

Making sure to keep some of his attention on the battlefield activities, Lex drew part of his upper consciousness into focusing on the activities of the dark-haired, darkly clad man and woman, the last two to leave the TARDIS, who were conducting a quick and thorough examination of the prone drone affixed by the body-bind curse. Several wires, some thin, some thick, led out from a two foot by two foot by two foot computerized box that greatly resembled a miniaturized Borg vessel. "What are you trying to do?"

The man looked up at him. "Attempting to break in."

"You're trying to hack into a Borg drone?"

"If we can get in," snapped the woman, who seemed to have a bit of a short temper.

Lex had his Queen Bee drone raise her mechanized arm and scan the device.

The darkly clad woman's reaction was automatic. She rolled to the side and pulled out her weapon, aiming it at Lex and his Queen Bee drone even as she called out to her partner. "Neo!"

Neo was even quicker, and was on top of his female partner, pushing her weapon away. He looked her in the eyes until she was still. "He's our ally, Trinity. It's considered bad form to shoot your ally."

She turned away with a mixture of anger and embarrassment. Trinity wasn't very upset by what she did out of reflex. Reflexes are what kept her alive for so long after all.

Neo crouched down to keep from getting fired on as he moved back to the box-shaped machine that Lex had just finished scanning.

"It's rather primitive, but it might work. What are you attempting to project inside the Collective?"

Neo turned so that Lex could see the hookup in the back of his head. "Me."

"I see," Lex said as he turned to now scan Neo. "If that is the case, you should adjust your blue cable down 30.75 degrees, and the yellow up 15.055, and remove the black cable all together or you will be dead before you hit the grid." After those adjustments, Lex ran another scan, and advised a few more changes before announcing it fit to use.

Trinity had returned by then, and was running a diagnostic of her own to verify whether she would allow Neo to risk himself in the alien virtual reality. She listened as Neo told Lex of the parallel world that they had come from. How computer lifeforms had taken over the world and keep people alive as energy generators while keeping their Human sheep a virtual reality where they live out their lives ignorant of their captivity and what is being done to them.

Lex frowned. "I'm not sure how your planned venture into the Collective mindset will work. The Borg Collective is set up much differently than how you describe your Matrix experience. The Borg actually have a symbiotic relationship with life forms that they enslave, using them for locomotion and interaction. Inside the Collective, a template of every individual that they converted into a drone is kept, which includes all their memories. The templates cannot interact; they can only be referenced for knowledge. The individual personality of the drones is locked down and not used as all the myriad of viewpoints and emotions would be too conflicting for the Borg to function effectively."

Neo considered this. "So, based on your experience, what do you think I'll find once I'm inside?" Seeing people cobbled together with tubes and machine parts made Neo feel edgy. It easily brought back memories from when he was first freed from the Matrix, and he had woken up in his pod attached to so many wires. He could tell that Trinity was uncomfortable with it, too.

Lex took a second to study that question. "You will be able to project yourself as an avatar in the Borg Collective, but that very feat would be your downfall. Your brain cannot interpret the data properly or control the amount of information that would be thrust upon you. The very attempt of connecting with the Collective would destroy your brain by filling it with more data than it could handle." Lex had his Queen Bee drone extend the tubules in her arm and attached it to the machine Neo and Trinity had brought with them.

"What are you doing?" Trinity said with alarm.

"I will be using my connection as a type of surge protector to keep your mind from being burned out as well as a scrambler to keep you from being noticed," Lex answered.

"Neo!" Trinity looked him. "Are you sure about this?"

"I have to do this," he said. "We owe it to the Doctor for the help he has given us."

They kissed briefly, and then they set about getting Neo set up to connect with the Borg. Neo took a small plastic blue bag from one of his pockets and pushed a button on it after placing it on the ground. The blue plastic item began to quickly expand as it filled up with air into the shape of a padded table about a foot of the ground. Neo climbed onto the table and reclined on his stomach, an open space where his face would be made it so that he could keep his face down and leave his plug at the back of his head clear so that the cable could be connected.

"You didn't say what you thought I'd find."

Lex glanced back at the man. "If you get in safely, you will find yourself among endless rows of captive templates. How you will find the Borg Queen,…I really don't know."

Trinity held the last cable in her hands. "Are you both ready?" she asked. At their nod, she took the plug and inserted it into the socket in the back of Neo's head.

Entering any virtual reality was an unpleasant experience due to the feel of something cold and metallic being put into your head, and then having your senses overlaid with new data. Neo had experienced the connection numerous times, and even though he had a better handle on the experience, the initial connect could still be a bit overwhelming.

There was white everywhere making Neo blink several times before he could look around. Lex had been right. There were rows after rows of drones lined up in every direction. But what he had not taken into account was that a number of them were of alien origin.

"It takes a moment to take in, doesn't it?"

Neo looked down in startlement. Standing in Neo's right shirt pocket, was the miniaturized version of Lex Luthor.

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm not here. I'm just a program created to aid you while in the Collective."

Neo frowned. "Just how are you supposed to help me?"

The Lex program chuckled. "First, your right hand now has a red glove."

Neo glanced at his hand and confirmed what he said. "So why am I wearing a red glove?"

"Wait a moment." Lex seemed to concentrate for a moment. Neo thought he looked constipated, and began to fear his pocket. "There," said the mini-Lex. "What do you see?"

Neo looked down the line of Borg captives and noted that a few now had a red haze around them. "Some have a red aura or field around them. Especially the green reptile-like humanoids."

"Those would be the Sleestaks. They are from this strange place," the Lex program informed. "The red auras are on the templates that have physical bodies here. And when you touch them with your new glove, it frees them from the Collectives' control."

"What does that mean exactly?"

"That when you touch the template with the red field over it, the drone that template represents is freed out there in the physical world. Free to do what they want, such as turning on the Borg Queen."

"I see," Neo said. "And what would happen if I touched one of these 'templates' without a red field around them?"

"Nothing to a great degree; it would just erase that particular template – all that particular being's memories and knowledge – from the Borg Collective."

Neo walked over to one of the Sleestak templates within a red field. "What kind of retaliation can we expect once I start freeing them?"

Lex managed to shrug. "Now that is something I really don't know."

"Okay then," Neo said, as he reached out with his red gloved hand. "Let's get this party started."

**AUTHOR's NOTES**

_The explosion that Lex and Brainiac were recovering from was the one set off by the elder Yautja hunter (from the Predator movies) in chapter 40._

_Lex Luthor and some of the others characters from the TV show Smallville were brought in to face the Borg in A Tangled Web Part 5_

_Brainiac accepted the Borg Queen's offer to join her in her endeavors in chapter 37, and he knocked out and took with him the Luthors from Earth-1 and Earth-2 as his gift to her._

_Yes, the drones that Elisa Maza turned into Lead, Gold, Iron, Tin, Mercury and Platinum were a nod to DC Comics Metal Men, but were not the actual heroic robots._

_Herbie, Harry Potter and Hellboy are all a nod to Carycomic's 'A MORE TANGLED WEB', a companion story to my TANGLED WEB series. Hope you enjoyed the surprise, Carycomic!_

**Character Roll Call For This Chapter:**

**Lex Luthor a.k.a. Brainiac** – from the TV show Smallville

**Lana Lang** – from the TV show Smallville (mentioned only)

**Chloe Sullivan** – from the TV show Smallville (mentioned only)

**Clark Kent** – from the TV show Smallville (mentioned only)

**the Doctor** (4th regeneration) – from the TV show Doctor Who (mentioned only)

**Lionel Luther** – from the TV show Smallville (mentioned only)

**the Devil** – from the TV show Brimstone (mentioned only)

**Mark Gordon** – from the TV show Highway To Heaven (mentioned only)

**Jonathan** – from the TV show Highway To Heaven (mentioned only)

**Lex Luthor** – from DC Comics / and from the cartoon Challenge Of The Super-friends (mentioned only)

**Brainiac** – from DC Comics / and from the cartoon Challenge Of The Super-friends

**Superman** – from DC Comics / and from the cartoon Challenge Of The Super-friends (mentioned only)

**Borg Queen** – from the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation

**Sleestak** – from the TV show Land Of The Lost

**the Master** – from the TV show Doctor Who (mentioned only)

**Queen Bee** – from DC Comics

**Alexei Luthor** of Earth-2 – from DC Comics (mentioned only)

**Elizabeth** – from the TV series V – The Series

**Elisa Maza** – from the cartoon Gargoyles

**Goliath** – from the cartoon Gargoyles (mentioned only)

**Ham Tyler** – from the TV series V- The Series

**Hannibal Smith** – from the TV series The A-Team

**Red Power Ranger** – from the TV series Power Rangers

**Green Power Ranger** – from the TV series Power Rangers

**the Doctor** – from the TV series Doctor Who

**Hellboy** – from the movie Hellboy

**Liz Sherman** – from the movie Hellboy

**Abe Sapien** – from the movie Hellboy

**Harry Potter** – from the Harry Potter book series

**Van Helsing** – from the movie Van Helsing

**Hermione Granger** – from the Harry Potter book series

**Neville Longbottom** – from the Harry Potter book series

**Neo** – from the movie The Matrix

**Luna Lovegood** – from the Harry Potter book series

**Ginny Weasley** – from the Harry Potter book series

**Ron Weasley** – from the Harry Potter book series

**Herbie** – from the movie The Love Bug

**Death **– from the Discworld book series

**Trinity** – from the movie The Matrix


	42. Chapter 42

**A TANGLED WEB 8: Endgame Part 42**

By Ordinaryguy2

Starscream pushed his new body up to nearly fifty miles an hour, but due to some bite damage the T-800 Terminator body had received earlier from the verminous, carnivorous alien beings known as Krites, Scarscream was unable to built up to a faster speed. The Decepticon entity felt vulnerable and small as he raced across the torn up battlefield to reach his goal. He jumped over one of the damaged Cybermen as it reached out feebly towards him, leaving it behind to expire alone. No, Starscream had little hopes of being able to survive this upcoming encounter, but would do everything in his power to have revenge. Revenge against Megatron for stealing his body while all Starscream could do was escape into this small construct. He would also strike at Soundwave, who had set him up for his body to be hijacked. Currently, he was racing through an open area on which all organic tissue had been recently dissolved, leaving a big dent in the Borg troops, but left Starscream a clear path to his goal. All he had to do was run and not trip over any of the metal scrapes left by the Borg.

The Master hated physical exertion. He was already out of breath, but pushed on. The boy he saw standing on the hill, if he was who the Master thought he was… He had to capture him. Through the boy, he could regain his chance on taking over ancient Gallifrey…or at the very least get his hands on some of the powerful, forgotten technology from that age making him near invincible.

He continued to the rocky hill which was becoming much steeper. His left hand was bloody from a sharp rock, but he pushed on instead of tending to it. His goal was what was important, not a bit of blood. Finally, making it past one more large boulder, he could see the young boy standing in the open watching the battle unfold below while alongside him doing the same, was a similar sized hominid covered in a long, blondish-brown hair all over his body except for his face.

"Don't move!" called out the Master, with a snarl, aiming a short hand-held rod, his tissue compression eliminator, at them. He eased up the rest of the way, keeping his eyes on the two young beings. He had thought the more animalistic looking boy might attack, but instead the hairy boy seemed to cower behind the one the Master had come collect.

"This is not your place or time!" stated the boy, sternly as he now directed his attention to the renegade time-lord.

"That's where you are wrong, boy!" said the Master. "Now that I have you, this place and all of time will be mine!" He walked closer to the two but kept his eliminator pointed at them. "You are the one known as the Other; one of the few instructed by Rassilon himself. You will get me back to Gallifrey and to whatever else I want!"

"Builder," said the hairy humanoid, "what do we do?"

The Builder, sometimes known as the Other, kept his eyes on the Master. "Stay behind me, Cha-Ka, and do not run."

"You are right to fear me," the Master said, with an evil-lit smile. "Now let us leave this-"

Explosive blasts hit the ground all around the Master, making him crouched down onto all four limbs to protect himself. Heavy objects struck the rocky soil around him, making him look up through the spiraling dust-laden mini-whirlwinds to see what was happening. His eyes widened as he realized he was surrounded by angry, giant robots – the Constructicons had found him.

Megatron stood before him in Starscream's body. "Ah, the one who would be my '_Master_'." Megatron looked down at the small, arrogant organic being, still with some amazement that such a puny creature could have had such a devastating effect on him. "I may not be able to strike at you myself," he said, referring to the geis Q2 had placed on all of the Master's recruits making it so they could not harm him. "But my new weapon will strike at you on his own!" Megatron's robotic frame contorted as it began to restructure into that of a military fighting jet, so that the pilot's cockpit could open.

General Martok was ejected from the cramped quarters of the cockpit. The Klingon's stiff joints led him to stumble on the unstable rock outcropping causing his to start to slide down the hill. He would have done so if it hadn't been for the Decepticon known as Rumble grabbing him by the arm and lifting him to safety.

"Careful, little guy," teased the short Decepticon. "You still have a job to do before you go on any trips."

Martok's face contorted in pain as not only did the robot have a grip that threatened to break his bones, but his arm was nearly being pulled out of it's socket as well.

"Put him down before you break him," growled Megatron.

"Just trying to help," replied Rumble.

Once on the ground, the Klingon general tentatively moved his arm, checking for damage. It was only luck that he spied the Master out of the corner of his eye taking aim at him with a device in his hand. Having nowhere else to go, Martok dove behind Rumble who received the blast from the Master's tissue compression eliminator.

The sound of metal compounding inwards on itself nearly drowned out Rumble's own screams.

Not allowed to strike at the Master himself, Megatron screamed in fury at Martok. "Kill him!" commanded the Decepticon leader. "Kill him now, before he manages to get away again! Kill him! Kill him immediately!"

Rumble fell to his knees as sparks flew off of him from cracks in his outer shell. He had been fortunate that the Master's compressor weapon had only been on him for a few moments, leaving him with a somewhat crumpled frame. "Somebody call a tow truck," he murmured. He glanced up at Hook as the diagnostic technician of the Decepticons began to move him away from the fighting in order to examine him.

Martok, swearing in Klingon, jumped out, firing at the Master, making the time-lord have to try run around behind the Constructicon named Scavenger. Scavenger found himself in an awkward situation, as he like the rest of the Decepticons could not harm the Master, he was having to try step out of the way so the Klingon could finish the time-lord off only to have the Master duck behind one of his legs again and again. Not enjoying Megatron yelling at him, Scavenger decided to take flight.

The Master fell back as his Decepticon shied took to the air, the thrusters of his takeoff knocking him down onto the ground.

With nothing else in the way, Martok stepped forward and was about to shoot the evil time-lord when a beam of red light came from the Other's hand, covering the Klingon, leaving him an immobile statue.

"What is this?" howled Megatron. He turned the small boy and the terrified Cha-Ka. "Release my agent of death at once!" he commanded.

"It's not his time to pass on," said the young boy, who watched the towering robots with casual interest.

The Master, however, was delighted with the change of events. "Time for you to die, Megatron! This time for good!" He fired his tissue compression eliminator at the giant robot, but not before another robot stepped in the way. The Decepticon known as Soundwave used his abilities to perfectly match the ultrasonic vibrations of the Master's weapon, thereby effectively negating them.

"Ha! Soundwave's stopped him!" chortled Blitzwing.

"I can still hit the rest of you!" The Master fired his weapon at Blitzwing, knocking the Decepticon backwards off his feet.

"Hit the ground around him!" bellowed Megatron.

Scrapper and Scavenger literally began striking the ground with their metal fists, while Skywarp, Ravage, Soundwave and Megatron began pounding the ground near the Master with blasts of energy, pulverizing the rock to dust. The Master found himself being barraged with chunks of rock, dirt and dust which threatened to bury him.

After a few moments into the earthen assault, when the pounding stopped, the Master struggled to free himself from his dirt cocoon. Coughing and rubbing his eyes, the time-lord pushed his way out and into the open. Warily, he looked around as the dust settled. His eyes opened wide as he noted that each of the Decepticons were encased in red light and unable to move. He had just started to laugh when he heard weapon fire striking something near him. Peering around Soundwave, the Master was able to see a Human-sized robot firing blast and blast at the ruby-encased Megatron.

"No! No! No! I will have my revenge!" shouted the T-800 Terminator unit. Throwing down his weapon, Starscream charged forward, and began striking with his fists against one of Megatron's legs. "You hear me, Megatron! I will have my revenge! I will reclaim the body you stole from me! I will-"

There was another flash of red. And Starscream – still stuck in the body of a T-800 Terminator cyborg – was encapsulated like the others.

The Master turned and directed his weapon, but he wasn't quick enough. The last he knew, red light had enveloped him.

oOoOoOo

The shapeshifting Founder wove herself painfully through the cracks in the rock walls of the Sleestak tunnels in a panic. It was slower moving than using the main tunnels, but had chosen that route after the Borg attack in the hopes that her escape would be easier since the Borg would have larger targets in her cohorts. That hadn't exactly been the case. While the Borg had been accidently been drawn to them when the oafish Alpha Hirogen had used a new holographic imaging projector that his people had invented; she forgot that the Borg were also drawn to biological species they had never encountered before; no Founder had ever been inducted into the Borg Collective before thereby making the Borg very interested in getting to know her better.

Electrical blasts meant to immobilizer her had instead forced to leave nearly a tenth of her charred body mass behind as she scrambled for a way out. Fortunately for her, a distraction in the form of a rampaging Alpha Hirogen using his holographic projector had been more successful than she would have imagined. She was therefore surprised when the small crevice she had been moving through opened up into one of the main tunnels with the Alpha Hirogen and the mirror universe Captain Kirk shooting down the corridor at the Borg alongside Captain Benjamin Sisko. In her fear-filled attempt to flee along with the agony she was in she hadn't realized that she had become turned around as she followed winding fissures through the rock.

"Sisko?"

The captain of Deep Space Nine barely gave the liquid-like changeling a glace, keeping his focus on forcing the Borg back from them. "Enough of this!" Sisko his phaser rifle at the ceiling of the tunnel above the Borg. The evil version of James T. Kirk realized what Sisko was intending and added his weapon fire at disrupting the overhanging rock.

The resulting collapse of the tunnel was quick and sudden. And they all paused to take a breath of the dusty air.

"Are we all on the same side now?" asked the Founder as she solidified onto the floor in a sitting position, attempting to re-gather her strength and wits.

"What the hell happened to you?" snarled Kirk, a streak of blood ran down the left side of his face and his left sleeve and part of the front of his shirt had been torn off at some point.

"I was shot!" she snapped, not willing to be talked down to by a solid even in the best of times. "What happened here? Are we all allies now?"

"Wasn't really a discussion," she heard behind her. Turning she saw that she had overlooked the fallen, somewhat dazed figure of Gul Dukat when she had entered the tunnel. "We all just realized at the same time that we'd have to concentrate all our efforts against the Borg if we were going to have a chance at surviving at all."

As the Cardassian struggled to regain his feet, the Founder helped him up and to stand, but making sure to keep his body between her the end of the tunnel that the Borg had been at.

"This way!" came a shout. Down the other end of the tunnel stood Ro Loren, covered in rock dust, waving for them to hurry.

Sisko and the Alpha Hirogen fired on more sections of the tunnel ceiling as they backed away, hoping to further impede the progress of the Borg drones if they clearing a path through the rock and debris.

When they had gotten to an intersection in the tunnel, they moved after Ro, letting her lead the way.

"Do you know where this goes?" spoke the Founder, trying to keep the fear out of her voice.

"More or less," Ro answered, keeping at a quick pace, but not so fast that the others couldn't catch up to her. "Captain Picard made contact with some more allies against the Borg, so they are pushing forward to attack."

"How can anyone attack!" growled Kirk. "These tunnels go all over the place. Any of them could be the right path, but they are all blocked. This is as frustrating as hunting for hortas."

Ro stopped when they came to a new intersection. Where the previous tunnel walls were rough this new tunnel was mostly smooth. It also had guards.

"Easy," came a familiar voice. "We're all working together now."

Letting Gul Dukat down at one of the sides of the tunnels where a Human looking male with a small glowing metal ball in his hand began to tend to him, the Founder moved forward to address the Starfleet officer. She assessed the various guards as to their threat to her as well as their ability to take on the Borg. Some were of a large simian origin and carried projectile weapons; they appeared to be strong and savage, but not much of a threat to her. Those wearing a red military style uniform with shades over their eyes had a Human appearance, but on a closer inspection she saw tears in their Human skin covering revealing green reptile scales underneath indicating a more alien origin than what they pretended to be; they had something similar to the Starfleet phaser rifles with an added adjustable frequency dial on it so they could fire through the Borg force shields. Another cluster of Humans wore a blue uniform with a trident emblem and a patch labeled SeaQuest; they carried more projectile weapons though a few had evidently picked up some more effective weapons somewhere, most likely from fallen allies as one weapon was the same as that of the lizard species hiding under Human like skin. The next group were all female, all dressed in leather and bore primitive weapons such as bows and swords; how they had made it this close to the Borg was a feat she couldn't imagine even though their stance and battle-readiness somewhat reminded her of her Jem'Hadar warriors.

Finally she saw someone she recognized who also seemed to know what he was doing. "Captain Picard," she began. "I understand a truce in currently in place. What can you tell us of the situation with the Borg, as well as these new allies?"

He had a cut on the back of his skull that had stain a majority of his gray hairs dark red. His uniform also had a several tears. He was frowning as he took in the sight of her and her three remaining compatriots. "Where are the rest of your team?"

She had studied Picard's file extensively and knew that he would be more willing to give her information if she was also forthcoming. "Seska died almost immediately after we arrived here. Lore was taken over control by some Human. Sela went out on a rescue mission to save Khan and hasn't been heard from since."

He nodded, accepting this information and processing it. "These people were brought here to help take down the Borg."

"Brought by whom?" She had an idea who, but needed confirmation.

"By the Doctor," he answered with a tight smile, letting her know that these were his allies and not hers.

"The Master was also bringing allies to fight the Borg," she asked, hoping for an answer. "What became of them?"

A young woman with a light strawberry-blond hair wearing primitive leather clothes spoke, "The Master's army and the part of the forces brought by the Doctor fought in the valley outside, but eventually they had to join forces when the Borg began attacking." She managed a smile across her weary, dirt-smeared face. "Hello, I'm Gabrielle, I lead the Amazons."

The alien shapeshifter processed this information quickly. The Master, who was supposed to supplement her team with fighters to take on the Borg as well as the Starfleet team and the Doctor's troops, had evidently been a failure. She would kill him for his ineptitude if she ever saw him. But for now she would have to play nicely and pretend to go along with this whole truce for now, and keep an eye open for any openings to pry victory away from the Starfleet team.

She turned away from the primitive female, refusing to communicate with such an inferior. As it was she had to make herself seek information from Picard and hope he would be willing to grant her answers. "How was this tunnel made? It wasn't here before when I mapped out the area."

Picard grit his teeth. He had read about the Founders and their mindset on the inferiority of those they called solids. "Pardon us, Gabrielle. I think I need a few words with…"

"She doesn't have a name," spoke Sisko coming up to them now as the last section of the tunnel behind them was collapsed. "Changelings seemed to think that having an individual name would give them too much of an identity from the rest of them."

"That's horrible," came Gabrielle's response. "To have so little sense of self, of what makes you who you are."

"Not nearly as horrible as all the chaos caused by how you solids run around all over the place disrupting everything you come upon," stated the Founder, now annoyed at them all. "In actuality the Borg have a much better solution; by turning everyone into drones that they can control, they actual bring about a greater degree of harmony and order to the universe. The only drawback is who is in control. A solid is just not suitable to be in command of the Borg, but I couldn't subject a Founder to be in charge, either, as they would be in constant contact with all those alien solid minds."

"Why does she keep saying '_solids_' like it's a bad thing?" asked the Amazon queen.

Sisko smirked at the Founder's look of annoyance. "She's actually a liquid life form that can take on other shape. '_She's_' not even really female; that's just the shape she has chosen to present herself as. Her people, the Founders, call us solids because that's what we are – stuck in one form. The Founders took it upon themselves to create a huge empire made simply to keep the shapeshifters safe. They couldn't care less about the lives of anyone that is a '_solid_'."

At this Gabrielle nodded. "I've met others of her mindset; they never end well, and they make everyone else's lives miserable, too." Behind her, two of her Amazon warriors, Ephiny and Eponin, stepped up behind her to be ready in cause this encounter turned hostile.

Instead, the shapeshifting alien turned her attention to the tunnel they were standing in. "What created this? Where is it going?"

Picard turned to another bald man who had just received a report from one of his men. "Captain Hudson? Do you have a moment to brief us?"

Captain Hudson turned to them for a moment, said something to the man he had been getting his report to them, then walked over to them. He had a stern, gruff exterior with a somewhat weathered face. "I suppose someone should. I'm surprised it took you this long to catch up with us."

"We had a number of not-so-friendly encounters before getting to these caves," commented Picard. "But from what you said earlier I take it that you know all of us, correct?"

"Your friend the Doctor made sure to let us know who you all are as well as your experience and abilities." He gave the Founder a hard glare daring her to try anything before he continued. "Fortunately for some we have a temporary alliance between our two forces in order to make a united front against the Borg."

"We know that part already," snapped the mirror universe Kirk. "Get to the part about the new tunnel."

The captain of the SeaQuest frowned. He was going to have to appoint two men to subtly watch over this '_wild_ _card'_. This was one that Hudson recognized as a man that would turn on others in a moment's notice.

"A woman is using a device she calls an Alchemy-Gun to turn the rock wall in front of her to air."

"And where is this tunnel going?" This time it was the Alpha Hirogen that had spoken up.

"Straight to the Borg Queen."

Picard and Sisko eyes widened in alertness as a fresh dose of adrenaline entered their bloodstream despite how tired they already were. "How soon until you reach the chamber she is in?"

"Less than ten minutes according to Luthor."

"Does the Borg Queen know what you are doing?" came a query from Gul Dukat where he leaned against the wall of the underground labyrinth.

"Not yet, and hopefully not at all. Luthor says he has her very distracted at the moment due to someone infiltrating into her Collective mind."

"I'd like to know how that was done later," Picard commented, as he looked over the various people in the large tunnel, attempting to gauge their abilities, and what they could do to fight the Borg. One of the gorillas, already anxious from the fighting, growled while baring her teeth at him, until the captain turned his attention elsewhere.

"Alright, whoever's in charge, listen up," came a strong voice from the tunnel leading outside, "I got a couple of wizards and witches covering the back entrance. Hopefully that will by us enough time to get this business done so let's head on in and do this already." Before he stepped out of the shadows, they could tell he was big, but they hadn't thought he was that big. His skin was dark red and had a oversized red gauntlet on one hand and held a large custom-made rifle in the other.

Picard stepped forward, noting that Sisko and Ro had been moved to the side so that they could stun the intimidating new arrival if necessary. "And you are?"

"Hellboy."

Before he could continue, the Alpha Hirogen stepped into Hellboy's way, making him stop so that the alien could appraise him. "You would be worthy to hunt," he said admiringly,

"I'm already taken," Hellboy responded with annoyance.

"To kill!" barked the Hirogen at the insult. "My race combs the far reaches of known space for worthy prey! Always looking for worthy trophies! And you would be a fine addition to my collection!"

The alien was a little taller than the demon. When Captain Picard moved to intervene, Hellboy held out his hand palm facing him to stop. "I got this," he said, with a nod to the captain. Then he turned his attention back to the battle-ready alien. "Now can you look me in the eye and tell me if you found anything as nasty as me out there in outer space."

To his credit the Hirogen did look, and what he saw there sent more than a shiver down his spine. "By the abyss!" He stumbled backwards and began to pull up his rifle-like weapon.

From behind Hellboy came a monstrously large gray canine creature that moved with surprising speed, pouncing on the large alien with a surprisingly speed and ease, all while carrying a cheering boy on it's back.

With the canine animal's mouth clamped firmly on his weapon and pressing into him, the Hirogen moved with a free hand for a large knife at his belt only to find the boy lightly jabbing a sharp machete into his questing palm.

"None of that now," the boy said with look that the Hirogen could easily read as this was one who had little qualms in maiming or killing.

"All right, you two, let him up," instructed Hellboy.

Both the large canine creature and the young boy slowly backed away from the Hirogen, unwilling to present their back to him. Overall, the Hirogen was impressed by their attack as well as their retreat. Even so, the red being still shook his inner core, making him question many of the old tales he had heard when he was young. He would be watching this formidable being and perhaps have questions for him when this was over.

With his massive gauntlet, Hellboy bent down and grabbed hold of the alien's front armor. Using it to pick him up, he then thrust him against the rock wall holding him a few feet off the ground. With his other hand, he took away the large weapon that the alien carried, letting it fall to his feet. "Now listen, we got us a nasty fight coming up. Are you going to play good, or do we just cut you loose now?"

The Hirogen wanted to answer but the question didn't make sense to him.

"I believe what he means is," spoke Captain Sisko, as he came over, while still keeping an eye on the evil Kirk, the recovering Gul Dukat and the somewhat amused Founder, "can you give us your word that you will not attack us while fighting the Borg, or even right after, or should we just send you away now?"

The Alpha Hirogen remembered himself, and snorted. "On my word, the goal of this venture was the Borg, and that is who I will carry my fight to, attacking no others that do so, unless they attack me. The threat presented by the Borg is more paramount than any other goal."

"Hmph! That's about right." The red demon let him down easy, preferring a less battered ally if he could help it. "Now let's forget about this and get ready for the big game." He patted the Hirogen on the shoulder somewhat roughly to remind him just how strong he was, and then headed over to Captain Hudson, who looked to be in charge of this end of things.

Sisko picked up the Hirgoen's weapon, grunting under it's surprising heavy weight, then handed it to the alien, who took it easily. The black Starfleet officer looked up at the alien, gauging him. "Captain Janeway had some things to say about you. Makes me glad we aren't shooting at each other anymore."

The Alpha Hirogen said nothing, but considered what Sisko had said, and especially the darkness he had seen in Hellboy's eyes. Moving over to his three remaining companions, it was the Kirk from another universe that finally spoke: "Wuss."

While Sisko had gone over to make sure everything was settled between the Alpha Hirogen and Hellboy, Picard had taken the opportunity to talk to the other two new arrivals. "I recognize you," Picard said to the boy. "You were with the Doctor. You're Kenny and then this," he said, regarding the beast upon which Kenny sat on again, "must be the Gargoyle dog Bronx, right?"

The boy frowned, fidgeting in his seat. on the Gargoyle's back. "I know I saw you at that space station, but how do you know Bronx? He wasn't there." The 900-year-old Immortal boy had wanted to keep Bronx himself the last time they were together, but the Gargoyles lived on a Earth that had a super-rich and powerful man named Xanatos who was obsessed with immortality, who would have done horrendous things to Kenny while trying to the secret to immortality. And the Gargoyles clan leader, Goliath, wouldn't allow Bronx to go with Kenny. So for now the boy and dog would have to just enjoy every minute they could together.

Picard managed a smile. "While you were at that space station, of which Captain Sisko over here is in charge of," he gave a quick nod towards Sisko before continuing, "you may have noticed that in Quark's bar there were six viewing portals following the movements of the six people from my world that were selected to aid ridding a parallel universe of a Borg invasion."

The boy grinned. "That's right. And that means they are probably seeing us right now then, huh?" Kenny grinned and waved to the invisible audience before reaching down to scratch at one of the canine Gargoyle's ears.

Another large form came from the outside tunnel, hurrying forward. "Gabrielle!"

The leather clad Amazon grinned with excitement at the newcomer, as she rushed forward to embrace him in a tight hug. "Dagger! I'm so glad you are all right!" Releasing him she began to look him over. "You are all right, aren't you?"

"Only very minor injuries," he said with a small. He was tall than a regular person, and had large, light blotches all over his skin, and thin, wavy, black hair on his head. He also wore leather and clothe clothing, but that did not hide the fact that he was very muscular.

Captain Hudson scrutinized the two lovers. Talking to the two of them earlier, he had learned that the spry, young woman was the queen of a tribe of Amazon warriors, and that Dagger was her consort. That complicated things for him. When the man known only as the Doctor had originally taken three of his personnel on a venture to ancient Greece of a parallel universe, two of his men, Lt. Tim O'Neill and a genetically created man named Dagwood, were somehow bodily merged with a local called Joxer – who was evidently an exact lookalike of O'Neill – into a joint entity that called himself Dagger. Somehow, during a rescue attempt, an accident had happened caused by who they claimed to be the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite. The sole man to return from this crazy venture had been Tony Piccolo. The story he had told had bordered on the ludicrous and might have been totally discounted except for some of the unusual items he had brought back with him. Now, four years later, Hudson himself was leading the people on a mission for this same mysterious Doctor.

He had wondered if he should insist that there be a way found to separate Dagger back into his three original components. He couldn't exactly force Dagger to come back with them when this was over because a third of him – the Joxer part – was a local here and it wouldn't be right to take him away. Even so, Dagger assured him that all three parts of Dagger's personality were happy with their life, for which, Hudson assumed, had a great deal to Dagger's relationship with Gabrielle. Then, of course, there was learning that Gabrielle was almost three months pregnant with Dagger's baby.

"Anything to report, O'Nie-. I mean, Dagger?"

The composite man looked up from the woman he loved to answer his old captain. "They're getting hit pretty hard out there. The sooner we take out the Queen the less bad news there will be all around."

Hudson nodded, agreeing.

"That being the case, I suggest we all get going then," came a jovial newcomer who most of them recognized.

The tooth-grinning Doctor walked in quickly, adjusting his long scarf around his neck. "I hope you don't mind, but I just had to be here for the finish!"

"I thought I had that end cut off," snarled Hellboy, "not put in a revolving door."

"Sorry, Hellboy, I let him through," came another person walking out of the tunnel.

"Harry? I thought I told you to guard the entrance and keep the Borg from attacking us from behind?"

Harry Potter gave the formidable demon a weak shrug. "My friends have it covered; and the more I thought about it the more I realized that the Borg seem more vulnerable to magic than anything else I witnessed. So I thought it would be a good thing for you to have a wizard along."

"And a witch!" came a voice behind him.

Harry whirled around. "Ginny, what are you doing here? You should be back with the others."

The redheaded just grinned as she walked up to her fiancé. "Sorry, Harry, but you were the one to show us how much better we preformed when one of us shields while the other casts curses."

"And Ron just let you come after me?" the young wizard inquired with a raised eyebrow.

She shrugged. "My brother was rather busy with dealing with bat-bogies after a brief disagreement we had."

Harry kept his grin to a minimum. "Alright then, but stay close, okay?"

Her grin mirrored that of a Cheshire cat. "You couldn't keep me away, Harry."

Another man soon arrived but this time from the end of the tunnel that was being bored through the bedrock directly to the chamber that housed the Borg Queen.

"Captain Hudson," spoke the man, "Tyler is ready for the rest of you to move into the tunnel."

Hudson nodded having everyone lineup and head down as they had already setup with the exception of the new arrivals who would mostly take up the rear. He had taken what he had heard said by Harry and Ginny to heart, and had them head to the front so they could provide magical shield cover when everyone exited the tunnel to fight the Borg. Hudson's biggest annoyance, however, was the Doctor, who didn't seem to listen to any of the orders he gave, but seemed to follow an agenda entirely his own.

Hudson still wasn't sure what to think of Ham Tyler who had gotten them this far. The man looked enough like him to be his twin, despite having come from a different parallel world. They were both strong-willed, determined individuals with military backgrounds. But, Tyler, nicknamed 'The Fixer', had later been taken into a shadowy ops division of the CIA, and it showed in his demeanor. The alien soldiers called the Visitors jumped to obey every one of his commands with a bit of fear, but a greater deal of respect. Even Hudson would think twice before crossing him.

The man that had brought the instructions from Tyler quickly walked over to one of the Amazons, kissing her on the lips. "Well, this is it."

Ephiny nodded, pulling her husband close for a moment before heading after the others. She and Henry had been married for nearly four years now, and had a two-year-old daughter back home in their village. It had taken the Amazons a while to accept that both their queen and their regent had bonded with men, but both Henry and Dagger had proven to not be like those men that had been the reason for the Amazon tribes forming. It also helped that both men had been part of the force that had come to their world to stop the Borg from assimilating all of them.

Henry, who had used to go by the nickname '_Howling Mad_' Murdock, had found his reason for sanity in the ancient Greek setting. To add to their society, he taught some of the more daring Amazons how to hang glide and how to use hot air balloons.

His friend B.A. Baracus lived in a village nearby and helped run a orphanage as well as became a respected blacksmith and inventor. Col. Hannibal Smith also lived there and had begun compounded vast amounts of historical records to compare with those of the world they had left. The resulting collecting was that of a growing library, which Gabrielle often added to with her scrolls when coming to consult with Smith. Their greatest venture since facing the Borg had been when Smith had led him and B.A. down into the depths of Hades in order to bring their friend Templeton 'Face' Peck back to the land of the living. A task they just barely managed to succeed and survive. Face was still trying to find his place again and had only recently started using his charms on women again.

"Be safe, okay?" he asked her.

Ephiny frowned at first, but realized he saying it more out of concern for her than anything else. "You, too," she said with a smile as they followed after the Doctor.

oOoOoOo

Neo ran through the lines of body templates tapping as many as he could with his right hand. The inside mind-scape of the Borg Collective was endless as far as he could tell, and this was just the level he could perceive.

He couldn't help but be amazed at the diversity in the aliens. Some seemed so Human, except for pointy ears, ridges on their nose or tentacle-like fingers. Some he found so alien he couldn't bring himself to reach out and touch it, making him feel like a little kid with his first time in a haunted house. Especially the one that looked like a eight foot tall mucus plant.

Instead, he tried to focus on the directions being provided by Little Lex, a computer program that the independent Lex Luthor drone had provide him with while helping him gain access to inside the Borg Collective.

"Cut right and go down two rows!" The program copy of Lex appeared to ride in Neo right front pocket and excitedly urged him on. "Now left!"

Neo tapped more of the templates of Borg prisoners as he went with his right hand, erasing them from the Collective; the glove was another gift that Luthor had managed to create for them.

"There's one, and in a couple of hundred yards you'll see another one in this same row."

Neo ran past, making sure to tap the dark-haired woman in leather as he passed her, freeing her physical form, wherever it was, from the control of the Borg.

He tried to go faster like he could in the Matrix back in his universe, but the Borg Collective setup wasn't as manipulatable to his abilities. "Can you tell if we are making any difference?"

"Not a clue," said the pocket-sized Luthor.

"So this could all be for nothing then?"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," said the program. "I can sense her growing awareness that something is going on, but she's not really sure what."

"So we are at least distracting her, is that all you can tell me?"

"Well, that and your next subject is just ahead."

He saw another one of the Sleestak drones ahead with a red aura around it when the aura suddenly fade. Neo skidded to a stop in front of the Sleestak's template. "Damn! I think the Borg Queen turned off your red auras."

The small program of Lex shook his head. "I still sense the red auras out there." He looked up at Neo who was already looking frustrated. "I believe this one's physical body just died."

Neo stared into the large dark orbs of the Sleestak and wondered what kind of being this was before the Borg had captured it. It's large lobster claw-like hands didn't lead to believe that the

Sleestak could have evolved very far technologically. But that didn't mean that they couldn't have be advanced mentally

"So if this fellow's body is dead, does that mean that his spirit is stuck could be stuck right here in front of me, or is it more of a mental recording?"

Little Luthor paused in thought. "Such an answer is beyond me, although my programmer did include on knowledge that on his first venture to face the Borg, he encounter with several angels sent by God, and a man that claimed to be the devil himself."

"What? He thinks God sent him on a crusade against the Borg?" Now there was a concept Neo hadn't been prepared for.

"No. Not as far as to what I am privy to, but to get back to your original question – I do not know if the Borg is capable of holding an individuals soul after the body dies."

Neo nodded and then touched the image in front of him with his red glove causing it to vanish. "Where to now?"

"Head on down the way we were going and you'll see another one soon." He glanced around as if looking for something. "And step on it. I think she might be catching on to what we are doing."

Running as fast as he could make himself while inside the Borg Collective, Neo tapped more templates of Borg victims as he hurried past, glad he could at least deny the Borg Queen access to them.

**AUTHOR's NOTES**

**List of Characters in the Order of Appearance**

Starscream – from the cartoon Transformers

T-800 Terminator – from the movie The Terminator

Krites – from the movie Critters (mentioned only)

Cybermen – from the TV show Doctor Who

Megatron – from the cartoon Transformers

Soundwave – from the cartoon Transformers

the Master – from the TV show Doctor Who

the Other – from the TV show Doctor Who; the Builder – from the TV show The Land Of The Lost

Cha-Ka – from the TV show The Land Of The Lost

Rassilon – from the TV show Doctor Who

General Martok – from the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation

Rumble – from the cartoon Transformers

Scavenger – from the cartoon Transformers

Blitzwing – from the cartoon Transformers

Scrapper – from the cartoon Transformers

Founder – from the TV show Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Alpha Hirogen – from the TV show Star Trek: Voyager

Capt. James T. Kirk (mirror universe) – from the TV show Star Trek

Capt. Benjamin Sisko – from the TV show Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Gul Dukat – from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Ro Laren – from the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation

Capt. Jean-Luc Picard – from the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation

Seska – from the TV show Star Trek: Voyager (mentioned only) (**dead**)

Lore – from the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation (mentioned only)

Sela – from the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation (mentioned only)

Khan Noonien Singh – from the TV show Star Trek (mentioned only)

Gabrielle – from the TV show Xena: Warrior Princess

Ephiny – from the TV show Xena: Warrior Princess

Eponin – from the TV show Xena: Warrior Princess

Capt. Hudson – from the TV show SeaQuest DSV

Lex Luthor – from the TV show Smallville (mentioned only)

Hellboy – from the comic book Hellboy

Kenny – from the TV show Highlander

Bronx – from the cartoon Gargoyles

Captain Kathryn Janeway – from the TV show Star Trek: Voyager (mentioned only)

Xanatos – from the cartoon Gargoyles (mentioned only)

Goliath – from the cartoon Gargoyles (mentioned only)

**Dagger** = Lt. Tim O'Neill – from the TV show SeaQuest DSV +

Dagwood – from the TV show SeaQuest DSV +

Joxer – from the TV show Xena: Warrior Princess

Aphrodite – from the TV show Hercules: The Legendary Journey (mentioned only)

Tony Piccolo – from the TV show SeaQuest DSV (mentioned only)

the Doctor (4th regeneration) – from the TV show Doctor Who

Harry Potter – from the books and movies about Harry Potter

Ginny Weasely – from the books and movies about Harry Potter

Ron Weasely – from the books and movies about Harry Potter

Ham '_The Fixer_' Tyler – from the TV show V – The Series

Capt. Henry '_Howling Mad_' Murdock – from the TV show The A-Team

Sgt. Bosco '_B.A._' Baracus – from the TV show The A-Team (mentioned only)

Col. John '_Hannibal_' Smith – from the TV show The A-Team (mentioned only)

Lt. Templeton '_Faceman_' Peck – from the TV show The A-Team (mentioned only)

Monica – from the TV show Touched By An Angel (mentioned only)

The Devil – from the TV show Brimstone (mentioned only)

Jonathan Smith – from the TV show Highway To Heaven (mentioned only)


	43. Chapter 43

**A TANGLED WEB 8: Endgame Part 43**

**By Ordinaryguy2**

**AUTHOR's note:**

_Sorry for the incredibly long delay, folks. At least I hope some of you are still out there and wanting to read my story as it winds closer and closer to the grand finale. For those of you that may not know, I had a innovative new surgery this January to eliminate or at least remove most of my pain issues that I got from a minor surgery that I had that was five years ago this Friday. Despite all the great results in removing the pain in nearly ninety percent of people having the surgery, I was not one of them. It's been a very depressing timed not being able to work and thus provide for my family, not being able to play with my kids, not being able to … well, you get the idea. I'm going to try wrap this story up before the end of this year. Then some new stories that have been in my head. My biggest thing is going to be getting me out of the habit of burying myself away with things to distract me from my pain, and instead to push through it and write._

_Wish me luck._

**A TANGLED WEB 8: Endgame Part 43**

One of the last things Captain Jean-Luc Picard could remember was a body slamming into him, knocking him down onto the rock floor of the cave, effectively knocking the wind out of him. His head could also attest to the durability of the ground as he felt a sharp ache in the back of his head, and even a little wetness that tickled the few hairs he had back there.

The body on top of him adjusted to shield him from rock shrapnel flying about the room. Bright lights flashed about in his eyes though he could tell that some of the slashing must be happening around them. The person lying over him moved again, and Picard was reasonably sure that it was a woman. "Beverly?"

"Not even close, captain," came the quick reply, cutting through the buzzing in his ears.

"Ro?" He blinked in surprise as his memory worked to catch up to recent events.

"I was the last time I checked in the mirror," responded Ro Laren as she moved off to his side. The Bajorian woman examined his eyes and then his head, hissing at the wound at the back of his head. "It'll hurt, but it's not life threatening."

He blinked as the area around him came into focus. "What happened?" he mumbled.

"I had to tackle you before you were shot by one of the drones," she stated, matter-of-factly. She ran a small handheld medical instrument near the Starfleet captain's injury. "This will keep you from bleeding to death, but within 12-hours you are going to have to have this looked at more thoroughly. Any serious swelling will be evident by then and hopefully dealt with as well. As it is you have a minor concussion, so stick close to me."

He grunted. "That means Captain Sisko should be placed in charge." It frustrated him to have to give command decisions over to the younger man just when they were most likely at their final battle with the Borg Queen. Being somewhat incapacitated meant he'd have to relinquish command, a rule he normally agreed with. After all, the mission should not be allowed to be jeopardized due to the person making the decisions was suffering from a head trauma.

The Bajorian woman knew better than to say anything, despite the fact that she thought he was just being childish. It made her want to hit him and yell in his face for whining about such a petty matter as to who got to call the shots. Technically she wasn't even in Starfleet anymore, so sparing his feelings shouldn't even matter to her, but he had once been her captain, and he had helped her out when no one else would. In truth it was Starfleet she was angry with, and not Picard. It was Starfleet that had let the Cardassians slaughter the Marquis, not Captain Picard. It was only due to Q selecting her for this mission that she was alive at all and not dead with the rest of the Marquis.

"The Borg Queen?"

"Still fighting something fierce," she muttered. "I think you pissed her off when you told her to, '_Give up_. _Resistance is futile_'."

Picard managed a chuckle despite the fighting noise in the background. "I did tell her that, didn't I?"

Ro snorted at his moxie. "And it nearly cost you your life." She bent down as someone nearby cried out before dying, bringing her back to the gravity of their situation. "Every one of those drones with a Human-like face now bares an evil snarl thanks to you."

With his vision clearing, he began to look around. They were tucked into a small alcove of the large underground cavern that the Borg Queen had been using to process new drones and create necessary equipment.

The captain rolled gently onto his side, mentally checking for any sharp cries of protest from his body. "Ok, passed the first test." Sitting up, he felt something give slightly in his back. "Damn, my back."

"Captain?" Ro looked back at him with concern.

"It's manageable," he grunted, as he sat up. "But I'll definitely be having Beverly look at it as soon as we get back."

The former Starfleet ensign had already taken a position at the edge of the recess in the rock wall, firing at any available targets. Computer consoles, regeneration alcoves, drone processing tables with some still occupied, and various equipment that the Borg had managed to manufacture were being used by the attacking forces as cover.

A body flew back landing roughly on the cavern floor next to Ro. Ro glanced down and saw that it wasn't a drone. "It's one of ours. And he's breathing."

"Cover me," came Picard's response. Ro's Starfleet training kicked in and she began laying down a suppression fire even though the Borg method of attack made such action moot.

Picard reached under the shoulders of the wounded man, grabbing him by his armpits and hauling him back into their shallow alcove. His back cried out in protest, but the Starfleet captain was resolved, though in retrospect he really should have traded positions with Ro and had her pull the man to safety.

Once he was in as far as he could get him, Picard let go and reached back to touch the ache in his back.

"How is he, captain?"

He let out a ragged breath, before pulling out a tricorder. "Just a moment," he grimaced, trying to ignore his own discomfort.

She pulled her head back in as a blast hit the rocks near where her face had been, showering them with bits of rocks. "Don't know how many more moments we have," she snarked.

Picard hissed at the readings from the tricorder. The man had some severe hemorrhages and his body was going into to shock; without a trained doctor or proper facilities, his life would be forfeit. A side note on the screen mentioned that the man was Det. Matthew Sikes, one of the recruits gathered by Q during the last venture against the Borg; the scan having been done by Commander La Forge.

"Here, let me see him," said a man who had rushed through the firefight to the protection of their small shelter.

Picard moved out of the way of the man in blue jeans and a light shirt in the hope that he could do something. To his surprise, the man held a small metal ball in his open hand as he seemed to concentrate over the man. Picard remembered the man doing something similar to Gul Dukat so wasn't alarmed when the metal ball began to glow brightly. If anything, he wished Beverly could be there to study the event, minus the attacking Borg drones, of course. Then he remembered that she had already this man, Paul Forrester he believed he was called, when she had had taken her tour of duty into one of the parallel universes to stop the Borg.

The man let out a gasp as his eyes fluttered open. "Uh…George? Where…?"

"Easy now," Picard said as calmly as possible. "This man," he nodded to Paul who was still holding a glowing metal ball over the man's chest, "is repairing some of the damage that had been done to your body."

"Oh man." Det. Sikes shook his head. "I know I should have known better, but I just didn't think George would attack me."

"George?"

"George Francisco. My partner on the force. We're cops together." He absently brought up a hand to rub his forehead. "But the Borg managed to get him during our first offensive strike. Probably brought him here to study him better." Noticing the curious looks in their eyes, he explained. "George is an alien – a Tenctonese, or as we like to call them, a Newcomer."

"I'm sorry about your friend," began Picard.

"Hey!" Sikes sat up, angrily. "Don't talk like he's dead!"

"Believe me, he wishes he were," Picard commented.

"You think I don't know that. I was briefly turned into one of those things before coming to this place!"

"Then you know what you have to do."

"If you mean kill him," barked Sikes, "then, no, I don't!"

"Has he been fully processed?" interrupted Paul Forrester.

"What? How do you mean?" Sikes welcomed the interruption.

"I've noticed that the drone manufacturing system seems to go in two steps. First is with the nano-probes taking over and creating a body-wide network system; that can be done anywhere with an injection. The second is where the drones are processed, and receive added attachments."

"He's in the first stage; they haven't replaced his arm or anything."

Paul nodded. "Then I might be able to help him."

"With your glowing ball?"

"Yes."

"Mr. Forrester," interrupted Picard. "We are in the middle of a full-scale, life and death battle going on here. We don't have time to-"

"Which is why you better hurry and do whatever you can now," snapped Ro. She was dragging a large form with a bald, pink, eggplant-like, spotted cranium back into their small shelter by the armpits.

"George?" Sikes hurried to help Ro with her burden. Once they laid him down to rest, Sikes looked up to Ro. "Thanks. He has a family and … I just don't know how I could explain to them that…"

She nodded. "I understand. I'm Marquis; we don't like to leave anyone behind if we can help it."

Her words stung Picard, but he said nothing, and moved out of the way of Forrester so that he could try to do something for George Francisco.

Ro had moved back to her position at the edge of their shelter looking out into the fighting. Near the middle of the chaos, she could see the large red figure called Hellboy fighting against a female Gargoyle drone. She took a shot, but missed. Then had to duck for cover as a series of blasts came her way.

Looking back at her comrades, she said, "I think we are stuck here for the moment."

The Alpha Hirogen tossed the dead body of Lt. James Brody, another Borg drone inductee, into two more drones coming towards him. Gabrielle and one of her Amazon warriors leapt onto the two downed drones and made short work of them. The Alpha Hirogen didn't stop to thank them for their aid, but moved onwards to get closer to the one called Hellboy. His earlier encounter with the demonic being left the Hirogen unsettled, and now he felt the need to prove his fighting prowess to the red being, hopefully by saving his life, and having him indebted to him.

Going around a console, he had to raise his weapon to block a sword from striking him. Coming into the open more, he was surprised to see a fully processed drone with an unusual looking sword in their remaining hand. Bits of the Blue Power Ranger's uniform still remained on the attacking drone's form, such as the glove and boots, but the rest had been discarded or recycled.

The Hirogen kicked out and knocked the drone's augmented arm away before the Power Ranger could stun him, then, using his gun he blocked another slashing motion from the drone's sword. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another drone approaching him quickly. Taking out his knife with his free hand, he slashed out at the new drone, cutting off it's tubules extended from it's arm. Then, before he could do anything else, the new drone, grabbed his hand with both of it's hands. That took the Hirogen by surprise, as the drone appeared to be a fully processed drone, but still had two hands. The other surprise was the speed and strength that the drone exhibited.

"I have this one!"

The Alpha Hirogen only slightly surprised to see the shape-changing Founder whirl around the Blue Power Ranger drone, and then contract to the point of crushing her victim. He understood her plan at once: she would follow in his wake of destruction, hiding in the background, only striking in order to allow him to get closer to the Borg Queen. Then she would use the distraction of him fighting with or near the Borg Queen to make her move. He didn't like being the diversion, but he also realized that it would give them a greater chance to take down the Borg Queen and end all of this.

The Alpha Hirogen rounded on the unusually fast drone as it proceeded to attack with several hits and kicks. Immediately the Hirogen knew he was dealing with an augmented Human with cybernetic parts from the contact he made with the young Earth man. In fact, his attacker had been a bionic being before being inducted into the Borg Collective. Bunji had in fact been a karate enthusiast before the accident that led him to receive bionic treatment that increased his speed and skill. He and the other survivors of the accident became members of the team known as Bionic Six and he given the codename Karate-1.

The two began exchanging a series of blows, mostly blocking the other from hitting, but not always. Though both had different fighting styles, they were able to adapt enough to be serious threats to the others well being. The Hirogen trained to fight new alien species for the hunt, as was their custom. Meanwhile, Karate-1 not only had his own skills, but those numerous martial arts experts from alien worlds.

A nearby explosion knocked them both off balance, but the Hirogen recovered first. Before he could deliver a final blow to his drone opponent, another sword wielding drone approached, similar to the Blue Power Ranger, but was female and showed pieces of her pink costume that had not been removed during her processing.

With an unearthly growl, the Alpha Hirogen brought up his gun to fire, only to have it knocked away at the last moment by the Pink Power Ranger's sword. Before he was able to return and attack again, both drones were upon him. Knowing he was about to be infected by one or the other, he determined to at least kill them, and then in a final act of defiance, himself as well.

He slashed out with his knife for a killing blow when both drones were suddenly no longer there.

He whirled around trying to determine what had happened, and if this was some other form of attack.

"I got them; don't worry."

Glancing behind him he looked incredulous at a young, redheaded female with a small stick in her hand.

"I transfigured them," Ginny Weasley said while pointing down at his feet where a toy green snake and a red bird lay. "I turned them into a stuffed basilisk and a phoenix."

He was appalled at having been saved by a female, alien child with a stick. "If you have such power available to you, why are we fighting our way through these drones?"

She frowned, feeling his animosity. "I've been doing a lot of spellcasting since I got here, and just transfiguring these two used up a lot of the energy I had in reserve. I don't have a lot left in me."

That was something he could understand. "Then stay behind me. I will try to cover for both of us, and when you get close enough you can…transfigure the Borg Queen and end this."

She looked up at the troll-like being in front of her, and felt a shiver of fear. Seeing the fallen figure of an ape lying over still form of a Sleestak drone, she set her resolve to end all the needless death and destruction. "Alright, I'm in; let's do it."

The towering Hirogen grunted his approval, then took off gun blazing with Ginny following after him. She forced herself to duck and cover as often as possible instead of using magical shields for protection; hopefully by doing this she would have enough strength to do something once they got to where they needed to be.

Ham '_The Fixer_' Tyler was a lifelong fighter. And then just when he thought he had seen it all, the aliens appeared in their humongous spaceships proclaiming they came in peace. The world welcomed them with open arms, especially after the newly proclaimed '_Visitors_' started giving out gifts that would help end famine, plague, cancer, and an numerous other things. Ham had been suspicious from the first, and quickly went underground while watching for signs of treachery. Sure enough, the Visitors were not stopping over on Earth out of brotherly love, but instead intended to suck it dry since on their world water was a scarce thing. The Visitors also had a food shortage problem, which was solved when they put Humans on their menu along with every other Earth critter. Fortunately, not every Visitor was like that, and there had been a fifth column group that worked with some of the Human Resistance groups and were able to send the Visitors packing back to their home world the first time. When they came back a year later, they were a little more polite. They took Humans off the menu (_for the time being_), and then appealed to peoples greed which unfortunately won them quite a few Human allies.

It wasn't until the Borg invaded their world, and they received aid from the capital warship Galactica, that they were able to free the Earth from the threat of the Visitors, and by doing so also freed the Visitors of their '_benevolent_' dictator known by his title which translates to Human languages simply as the Leader. Fortunately they were able to immediately replace the Leader with Elizabeth, a Human-Visitor hybrid who also had the same powers.

It had been just a few months (at least for them) after the Borg had been defeated that the Doctor had arrived looking to recruit aid in order to put a final end to Borg conquest across the multiverse. Ham had been the first person Elizabeth had called in.

Now he was fighting the Borg against, but this time alongside what looked to be his doppelganger from a parallel universe. Captain Oliver Hudson, a captain on a futuristic submarine used to police the oceans for something called the UEO, seemed to have a good team that followed his orders without hesitation, except for that Piccolo clown. Ham didn't consider Hudson to be as hard as he was, but no one he knew that was still alive was, and he did consider Hudson up for the task at hand so he decided to leave it at that until the fighting was all over. Then, if they were both still alive, he'd scrounge up some beer, and he and Captain Hudson would sit down and see just how much they did have in common.

A close encounter with a large Borg drone brought the fact that he needed to survive all this first and foremost before he could speculate about lookalikes and possible multiversal conspiracies. The drone's face was one he had seen recently aboard the Doctor's TARDIS named Harry Tasker; or at least he assumed it was the same man. At this point he wasn't about to be surprised if it turned out to be another body double.

But it wasn't just one drone attacking him. No, it was a husband and wife team. It was only because they had both just finished being processed as drones that Harry and Helen Tasker ended up fighting side by side. Tyler fired a shot off at the two while diving behind an occupied operating table of some type. In his rush for cover, he had inadvertently knocked over a small cart that spilled out a number of amputated limbs and eyeballs onto the floor around him. Ham muttered a curse word he had learned over in Vietnam as he kicked some of the limbs away from him.

Peeking over the table, he saw that Helen Tasker had been engaged physically from behind by Col. Hannibal Smith, a Vietnam vet like himself -even if on a parallel world- that he'd discussed the whole Borg situation with while coming to this weird place in the Doctor's TARDIS. But that still left the bigger drone for Ham to deal with. Jumping up, he tried to take a shot only for his weapon to fizzle out. "Damn!" He dropped down again knowing he only had seconds before the Harry drone would be on him.

Looking down, he got at idea. A stupid one, but it was that or kill himself. And he had no aspirations of becoming a drone.

He tossed his weapon up and over the counter so that it should come down right in front of the drone. Then he leapt up and swung the discarded amputated arm of a Sleestak, letting it fly and hit the Harry drone in the chest and onto his back. This was the point where Ham would then dash over and further incapacitate or kill the drone. What Ham hadn't expected was the stationary drone on the operating table to reach out and grab him. And if that weren't bad enough, three of the amputated arms on the floor managed to grab a hold of his feet.

Damn! The nanites in the amputated limbs still responded to the Borg Collective. Ham didn't have time to kick himself for not thinking of that before.

The drone Mr. Furious, a member of the superhero team called the Mystery Men, had not had a Borg prosthetic added to the stump that remained of his left arm. That didn't stop the Mr. Furious drone from trying to shove the stump into Ham's face.

Ham grappled with the surprisingly strong drone, trying to keep it's stump from making contact with him and possibly compromising him with nanites. "Not happening," he muttered to the drone, as he bent the stump away from his face. He'd managed to pull out one of his favorite knives, but the held him by the wrist with his remaining good hand. Ham resolved himself not to become a drone. He knew that if he couldn't take out this one-handed drone in the next few seconds, he'd have to turn his knife and fall on the blade himself.

"Let's change your station to some hard rock!" came a shout just as a head-sized rock slammed into the side of the Mr. Furious drone's head, making him fall limp.

Ham rolled away from the stunned drone, not even taking time to finishing it off, and fell to the floor, which, despite the pain of the impact and knocking his breath away, he reminded himself that he had more cover down there.

A small explosion lit up the area on the other side of the table, nearly distracting him to the point of not noticing the two men ducking down next to him.

"You okay, Tyler?" said one of two men that knelt beside him.

Ham groaned as he sat up. "I'm getting to old for this." He blinked as he caught sight of one of his rescuers. "Starbuck?" He'd met the Viper starfighter pilot when the rag-tag fugitive fleet of over two hundred vessels, protected by the last surviving capital warship Galactica, came searching for their long lost '_cousins_' on the planet Earth. It had been very fortunate for the people of Earth because not only were they already struggling with the occupying forces of the Visitors, but they were just learning about the threat of the Borg when Starbuck and company had showed up. It had been doubly rewarding for the wandering when the Cylons that had been dogging their fleet started a fight with the Visitor motherships, which ended with the Cylons becoming scrap floating in space. Ham had hit it off with Starbuck. They'd even double dated, Starbuck with his long-term fiancée Cassiopea while Ham took along a young Visitor named Cassie who he was seeing. Usually it was the men teaching other their versions of games of chance while the ladies discussed everything from history and customs to genetics. Ham had been surprised at how much he had liked it all. He was even more surprised at how well things were going with him and Cassie. Even his long term partner in the field, Chris Faber, said he should marry her already.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts. "That you, Starbuck?"

"Close, but no cigar," chuckled the man. "I'm his good-looking double."

Ham took another look and groaned. While Ham had found his doppelganger in Capt. Oliver Hudson, Starbuck's was Templeton "_The Face-Man_" Peck, a happy-go-lucky, on-the-run-from-the-law mercenary member of a four-man team called the A-Team. While Starbuck was from outer space and Peck was from Earth, they were really two peas in a pod.

"Yeah, well, what took you?" He checked himself for weapons only to have Peck hand him a Visitor pulse rifle.

"The guy it came from won't be needing it," Peck gave as explanation, which was actually more than Tyler needed to hear.

"The guy I was wrestling is down?" he asked while checking the remaining charge in the rifle.

The man behind Peck smirked as he hefted a large rock in his hand. "Let's say I rocked and rolled his world."

Tyler gave a grunt of acknowledgment to another one of Col. Smith's men known as '_Howling Mad_' Murdock. Smith had mentioned that Murdock had actually been considered a bit crazy. But after they had stopped the Borg on a parallel Earth in ancient Greece, they had opted to stay there, and Murdock had taken up with one of the Amazons and helped to raise her centaur son. Somehow in that most unusual setting, Murdock had come to terms with sanity and become a family man.

"I nailed the other one with a Molotov cocktail," Murdock added. "Hope he didn't mind being flambéd."

"Oh, I don't think he took to it too well," Peck commented, peeking over the stunned Mr. Furious drone.

As they all looked over the '_operating table_', they could see the drone of Harry Tasker standing up and turn to them. The flames were mostly gone, but where it burned away the skin it had exposed the underlining of the cybernetic network that the nano-probes had built under the skin. Even though it was only a thin layer, it gave the appearance that it was a robot that had been hiding under all that Human flesh.

"Oooo, that is one mean looking crispy critter," Murdock murmured. "I don't think it liked the drink I gave it."

"You think?" Peck brought up his weapon, but they had to duck down as the Harry Tasker drone began shooting at them.

Tyler managed a grin. "You guys sure know how to have fun."

**In Order of Appearance:**

Captain Jean-Luc Picard – from Star Trek: The Next Generation

Beverly Crusher – from Star Trek: The Next Generation (mentioned only)

Ro Laren – from Star Trek: The Next Generation

Captain Benjamin Sisko – from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (mentioned only)

Borg Queen – from Star Trek: The Next Generation (mentioned only)

Q – from Star Trek: The Next Generation (mentioned only)

Det. Matthew Sikes – from the TV show Alien Nation

Commander La Forge – from Star Trek: The Next Generation (mentioned only)

Paul Forrester – from the TV show Starman

Gul Dukat – from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (mentioned only)

George Francisco – from the TV show Alien Nation

Hellboy – from the comic book Hellboy (mentioned only)

Angela – from the cartoon Gargoyles (mentioned only)

Alpha Hirogen – from Star Trek: Voyager

Lt. James Brody – from the TV show Seaquest DSV

Gabrielle – from the TV show Xena: Warrior Princess

Blue Ranger – from the TV show Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers

Founder – from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Karate-1 – from the cartoon Bionic Six

Pink Ranger – from the TV show Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers

Ginny Weasley – from the Harry Potter book series

Sleestak – from the TV show Land Of The Lost

Ham '_The Fixer_' Tyler – from the TV show V

the Leader – from the TV show V – the Series (mentioned only)

Elizabeth – from the TV show V – the Series (mentioned only)

The Doctor (4th regeneration) – from the TV show Doctor Who (mentioned only)

Captain Oliver Hudson – from the TV show Seaquest DSV (mentioned only)

Tony Piccolo – from the TV show Seaquest DSV (mentioned only)

Harry Tasker – from the movie True Lies

Helen Tasker – from the movie True Lies

Col. Hannibal Smith – from the TV show A-Team

Mr. Furious – from the movie Mystery Men

Starbuck – from the TV show Battlestar Galactica (the 70's version) (mentioned only)

Cassiopea – from the TV show Battlestar Galactica (the 70's version) (mentioned only)

Cassie (a character I made up but she is a Visitor) – from the TV show V

Chris Faber – from the TV show V – the Series (mentioned only)

Templeton "_The Face-Man_" Peck – from the TV show A-Team

'_Howling Mad_' Murdock – from the TV show A-Team


	44. Chapter 44

**A TANGLED WEB 8: Endgame Part 44**

**By Ordinaryguy2**

Above ground, on the now quieter side of the field of battle, near the battered wall that had been hastily built to hold back the Borg, Skeletor rose slowly to his hands and knees. He shook his head and let out a pained groan. "What-what hit me?" His head jerked up. "I was attacked…from behind!" He staggered to his feet with anger and outrage fueling his body, the green magic ring, his newest acquisition while in this new land, formed a formidable force shield around his body.

"Master! You're awake!" cried Imp, his football-sized, blue, winged form flying circles around Skeletor's head. "Now you can save me, save us all!" he exclaimed with great glee.

Annoyed, Skeletor waved the high-pitched pest away with a growl, his power ring forming a super-sized, green flyswatter and narrowly missed the quickly retreating Imp. Seeing no attacking drones nearby to be immediately concerned about, he turned to his underlings. "What happened here?" The last he remembered he was using his power ring to empower the futuristic villain called Mist Master so that his cloud-like form could stretch far enough and still be strong enough to dissolve the organic bodies of the Borg attacking them. And it had been working at least up until everything went black for him. He looked around for someone more reliable than Imp to answer his questions, his eyes resting on Evil-Lyn.

"My Lord Skeletor." She hurried over to him, making sure she did so before the upstart Shadow Weaver. "We were betrayed," she told with a short bow.

"By those goody-two-shoes heroes?" he said, with surprise, not thinking the heroes of making such a logical move. They seemed too much like his nemesis, He-Man, who would never attack from behind.

"No, by one of our own," she spat venomously. "The android Brainiac."

Somehow his skull-like visage managed to scowl even more. "Why would he…?"

"He has joined the Borg, milord," answered the red cloaked Shadow Weaver, and she, too, bowed before him, hoping to curtsy her way into his favor. "He indicated he had received some sort of communication from them and then chose to turn on us and join them."

Skeletor fumed, ignoring the petty rivalry growing between Evil-Lyn and Shadow Weaver and the glares they exchanged. "Where is that Human that was always with him? Where is Luthor? He should be able to give me some answers!"

"Brainiac took Luthor with him. In fact, he took both Luthors," responded Beast Man with a growl, putting some ointment on the left side of his head where the fur had been burned off.

"So the two Luthors were in on it." He scratched irritably at his chin as he thought of the two villains from what they called Earth-1 and Earth-2. "I will have to come up with a very ugly demise for them."

"You misunderstand the situation, my lord," Evil-Lyn interrupted. "Brainiac stunned the two Luthors, planning to present them to the Borg Queen as a wedding present."

"Wedding present? He plans a union with the Borg Queen?" It made sense to him now; they were both artificial intelligences, Brainiac more so than the Borg Queen. But, regardless, it wouldn't stop Skeletor from crushing every last bolt and microchip in Brainiac's body.

"He won't have time for a honeymoon after I get a hold of him," retorted the green suited, 30th century villain Nemesis Kid with a scratchy voice.

"What did he do to you?" He noted several other Humans gingerly rubbing their throats as they rose from the ground.

"He killed one of my team!" snarled Nemesis Kid. Behind him, two members of the Legion of Super-Villains, Silver Slasher and Spider Girl, arrived, tensing to this news.

Evil-Lyn rolled her eyes in annoyance that the Human was answering the question wrong. "Brainiac used some type of knockout gas. Its lasting effects seems to have irritated the throats of the Humans more than those of us from Eternia,"

Looking around, Skeletor could see that more Humans around them rubbing their throats. He also noted that his pet, Panthor, looked as if he were dealing with a particularly troublesome hairball. But what he didn't see was anyone fighting the Borg.

"What happened to the Borg?"

"They retreated back to their caves," came a response from the lizard-man Tung Lashor who was observing the field of battle from behind a large cluster of boulders alongside a groggy Grizzlor and a weak Rattler, who had just recently been freed of the Borg nano-probes.

Skeletor went to observe what was happening for himself, and noted that the fighting was now still in full swing on the far side of the battlefield, where the cave entrances were.

"Hmm, I don't see many of our people there."

"Our side was hit harder during the Borg attacks, milord," stated Evil-Lyn, "so we let the heroes go after them while we patch ourselves back up." She nodded to the side where he could see various villains taking stock of their weapons, treating the wounded, and in a few cases rebuilding their defensive wall in case of another attack.

The skull faced man nodded in approval. "Yes, we will need our strength for when we turn on the heroes. Let them batter themselves silly against the Borg, weakening each other. Our forces will be there in the end to claim victory over all!"

Spider Girl leaned over to whisper to Silver Slasher. "A bit overdramatic, isn't he?"

Silver Slasher only grunted in reply, her right hand held tenderly to her chest, as that was the hand that Mr. Incredible had broken the fingers of. She was tired of the fighting at this point, her bloodlust had given away to waning determination. In truth, what she wanted right now was a medic for her hand, a hot tub to soak her aches away, and something strong to drink.

"You're going to turn on us!?" came a startling exclamation from behind them.

Dash of the Incredibles was not a very patient boy; in fact, his sister would describe him as the exact opposite of patient. He had been part of the exodus of children leaving the fighting zone. They had been watching from a distance for a while, but with the Borg drones retreating and Dash not wanting to wait any longer, he decided he'd get a quick closer look using his super speed powers. Maybe bring back some good news to the others. Wary of his parents spotting him, Dash chose to approach the area from the villains' side of the defensive wall built to withstand the Borg. Which is how he came to hear what Skeletor said.

The villains only looked at Dash in surprise for a moment before Skeletor cried out, "Kill the meddling whelp!"

The youngest member of the Incredibles, Dash spun around, but instead of running away he placed his hands on the ground to hold him in place as he ran, his feet shredding the turf causing the bad guys to be pelted with dirt and small rocks. Then pushing himself back up, he was on his way. Or almost was.

The feline Catra lithely leapt into the path of the speeding young superhero, a cruel snarl in her grin. "Going somewhere, little booyyyyoooyyyyeee!"

Dash had picked up some loose vines off the ground, and in less time than it took for Catra to take a breath she suddenly found herself laying on her chest on the grass with her legs and arms hogtied in back of her.

Dash took a moment to shake his hands over his head as he stood over her. "And a new world record! The crowd goes wild! Yeehaw!"

"Stop him!" shouted Skeletor even as he sent out blasts of green energy with his power ring, all of which Dash evaded. Shadow Weaver moved to add her spells to subduing the fleeing child, while Evil-Lyn went for a different approach. Placing a hand to her forehead, she sent out a mental call. _Hector Hammond_.

_What is it now?_ spoke an annoyed answer. In her mind she saw the image of a man with a ballooned forehead and shrunken body hardly acknowledging her as anything more than a nuisance.

_We have a situation that requires your immediate attention_, she stated.

_That's what everyone's been saying, especially that whinny Shredder. For a ninja master he can be quite a wuss_.

_Just look at what it is and judge for yourself_, she said even as she pushed the events with the rocketing Dash at the forefront of her thoughts.

Hammond let out a sigh, and gave a brief glance before performing the equivalent of a mental double take. _Ah crap!_ he muttered to himself._ Dr. Psycho! Esper Lass! Brain Wave! It's on!_ he called, even as he cursed Skeletor for getting them in this situation so soon.

The four telepaths were physically entombed in a small cavern they had found to keep them safe while they handled communications for their team. Hammond's form had been mutated by a radioactive meteorite, causing his cranium to swell as he evolved to a larger mass that the rest of his body. However, the mutation also shrunk the rest of his body and left him a paraplegic. But he considered his mental powers to more than make up for his physical loss. Brain Wave also had a diminutive frame, but was not handicapped. He often sought to hide his weak body with the mental illusion of a stronger, taller costumed body with a full head of hair, instead of his true form of a short, bald, bulbous-headed man with incredibly thick glasses. Dr. Psycho had hidden himself behind formidable looking illusionary forms earlier in his villainous career, but had given it up as he embraced his more deviant and sadistic side. Esper Lass was the only one of the mental quartet to have a normal sized body. She came from the 30th century, and was a member of the Legion of Super-Villains. While she acknowledged the other three telepaths as being as powerful as herself, she still looked down on them due to living in such a primitive era. Still, she had to acknowledge that they had some abilities that outstretched her own, which rankled her.

_It's too soon!_ complained Brain Wave. _A lot of our guys are still patching themselves up!_

_Take it up with skull-face_, Hammond retorted, sending a visual of Skeletor wearing a dunce hat. _He thought it would be a good idea to spout off how we were planning on turning against the heroes after they wore themselves taking down the Borg within hearing distance of one of the do-gooders_.

_Why didn't you just stop the hero from telling the other fools?_ demanded Esper Lass, as if she were dealing with a couple of idiots.

_I would have_,' snapped Hammond, _except for the fact that the hero in question is a speedster and has already made it to their side, and is telling everything as we speak_. With the boy over in the heroes' side, any mental attack they sent out against the boy would be detected and blocked by the formidable mental powers of Professor X.

Dr. Psycho's reaction was one of extreme fury. _That's the little piece of #$& that pounded the $#& out of me when we first got here! Once I get a hold of his mind I'm gonna make him run barefoot across a mile of broken glass! I'm gonna make him destroy everything he holds dear! I'm gonna-_

_Enough with the ranting; we have to act on this immediately_, Hammond explained. He looked over to where Dr. Psycho's body sat. The diminutive man's face was covered in bruises from his brief encounter with the child speedster after the villain had mentally attacked his sister. _Organize everyone that is still here to attack the heroes_.

Dr. Psycho piped up, _I'll control Validus!_ he declared, referring to the giant purple monster sitting by himself and was currently stacking the remains of the Plastic Men androids into a circular mound as he quietly played._ Hee hee! He'll be an interesting remote control tool of destruction to use against the heroes_. _Bet I could even fry Dash with Validus' mental lightning!_

_Not necessary_, spoke Esper Lass. _I've already informed Tharok of the situation and he's already has devices controlling Validus_. Tharok, leader of the Fatal Five in the 30th century, had had one side of his body vaporized during a robbery. Scientists had grafted a robot body onto the remaining half of his body, including a newly developed robotic brain that connected to his brain. With this new connection, Tharok was able to access the robot brain and put together plots that soon had him labeled as one of the most dangerous men in the known universe. And while he recently had parts of his robotic arm and leg chopped off by Wolverine, his cyborg intellect was functioning just fine.

_Someone else can try control Bizarro_, whined Brain Wave. _My frontal lobe is still quivering from my previous attempt to direct him._

_He's over fighting the Borg with most of our able bodied troops alongside those heroes_. Hammond considered their options. _I recommend we order a full retreat of our forces, allowing the heroes and the Borg to wear themselves out battling each other. We take the wounded heroes in the triage area hostage, and use them to secure control of the TARDIS so that we have a means of egress no matter who wins._

The others considered this plan for barely a second before agreeing.

_Very well, I'll contact Vandal Savage so he can formulate a strategic retreat. I'll also request that he send Black Adam right away, _mentioned Hammond_. The heroes should focus all their energies against the Borg unless we start an attack on them. Brain Wave, you organize whoever we have still here. If we act quickly enough, they won't even know we are going to fight their wounded colleagues until it is already over. _

Brain Wave frowned. _Some of our wounded have been evacuated onto the Doctor's TARDIS; I can't contact them there_. He looked for confirmation from the other to see if their attempts to communicate those inside the TARDIS were also unproductive, and feeling somewhat better when they failed as well.

_They are on their own, for now at least_, decided Hammond. _If they learn of our turning against the heroes, we can only hope that they are able to do something similar inside the Doctor's TARDIS, and capture it._

Dr. Psycho chuckled evilly. _I like the way you think, Hammond_.

_Glad you think so, because I want you and Esper Lass to tackle Professor X._

The mental midget deviant frowned. _The cripple's got some serious mental kung fu. I hate to say it, but I don't know if the two of us can take him._

_Speak for yourself_, Esper Lass snorted with contempt. _I've mastered mental techniques that you couldn't fathom, coming from your primitive era. I should think that even you know that skill will almost always trump brute power._

Dr. Psycho snorted, amused despite the insult aimed at him. _That crip's got skill __and__ power. And need I say, way more than you've shown so far._

Hammond interjected himself between the two telepaths before they started to fight. _Just keep him busy until Brain Wave and I can help you. All of us together should be able to easily overpower him._

With that, they went about their consigned missions.

Professor X ceased talking as he felt the impact of a strong mental attack. He closed his eyes even as he winced. Bringing a trembling hand to his forehead, Charles Xavier began to beat back his attackers.

"Professor?"

"He is under a telepathic assault," came an answer from Enik, the representative for the Sleestak that inhabited this strange land.

"I told you the bad guys were going to attack!" exclaimed Dash.

"That doesn't mean it's one of my teammates attacking him," argued the Riddler. "For all we know, the Borg Collective have figured out a way to attack our telepaths!" Since the disappearance of Lex Luthor, Riddler had allowed himself to be one of the villains' representatives in the joint effort against the Borg. But if the other villains had turned on the heroes, that would leave him vulnerable in the heart of the enemy. "Besides, our teammates would have given us notice to get away first before they'd attack, right, Shredder?"

He glanced around for the master ninja with growing trepidation, spotting him and a few of his Foot ninjas as they joined with some of the other villains closer to the far side of the triage area. Resolving himself, the Riddler stayed true to form. "Heh, how is a hammer like a t-"

Zandor struck him hard in the face with a blow that if the Riddler had remained conscious would have rated almost on par with most of the hits he had received from Batman.

"Was that really necessary?" asked the Doctor, looking down at the stunned question mark clad scoundrel now at his feet.

"Indeed it was," growled the leader of the Herculoids. "Igoo, Thing, block the villains while we clear the rest of our wounded. Doctor, you should secure the TARDIS." Ben Grimm, bandages on his hands and left side, managed to get to his feet alongside the 12 foot tall stone ape, Igoo. Igoo also showed injuries to his hands, including a missing finger, as well as a gaping wound in his chest from a Yantja blade that only seemed to slow him slightly. Both moved as sentinels, side by side as they went to the where the villains were beginning to conjugate.

The 4th Doctor incarnation frowned slightly as he considered other issues of their situation. "Three of my incarnations are already inside the TARDIS and should be able to deal with any problems on that front. I think my services would best be used moving the rest of our wounded. Then-"

"What is she doing?" interrupted the young voice of Dash.

Zandor and Doctor both saw the Romulan woman Sela kneeling in front of Professor X's still form with her fingertips pressed against the sides of her face. Her companion swung his crutch, roughly made from a branch, into their path to block them.

"She's trying to help him," growled Khan Noonien Singh, from where he reclined on some piled up moss with his injured leg propped up on a small boulder.

"It's true," said Enik. "I can sense her lending him some of her telepathic strength, meager and undisciplined though they are." The Altrusian, the last living ancestor to the Sleestak, went to stand behind the wheelchair bound leader of the X-Men. "And now I shall try to lend my minor abilities to the telepathic battle." He gently placed his lobster claw-like hands on either side of Xavier's bald skull and he raised his own head as he placed himself in a trance.

"Wow," murmured Dash, impressed even though he could not see what was going on.

"Dash!"

The speedster jumped as a hand fell on his shoulder. Then looked up at his father's masked eyes. "Dad, um, I was just taking a look because the Borg had left this area." He glanced down at his feet before admitting his other concern. "And I was worried about you and mom." He glanced to the left and gave his stern looking mother a shy smile.

Mr. Incredible's face sported a number of dark bruises as well as a split, bloody lip. His tear resistant costume had also been sliced open in several sections revealing serious gashes that had been sealed shut with a paste since his super-thick skin made it so that stitches would not work for him. Elastigirl stood next to her husband, with her left arm stretched around his chest several times to hold the broken ribs in place. "Honey," began his mother, "this is not a regular super-villains vs. superheroes thing; this is a war. And in war people die, some here have already died."

"But I can-"

"Your father and I need to know you are safe if we are going to be able to fight to the best of our abilities."

"But-"

"No more '_but_'s, Dash," his father spoke more sternly. "Go back to the rest of the kids and stay there. And keep your sister safe." Then he added, "We're counting on you."

The boy frowned, letting his lower lip stick out. "Fine!" he declared, tearing off at high speed up the hill.

His father sighed. "Some days I just don't know if I'm getting through to him at all."

Elastigirl leaned up against her husband, careful not to touch any of his wounds. "He's just a hyper-active child, and a very well-behaved one, at that, so we must be doing something right."

"You really think so?"

"Of course I do," she said. "Now let's help get some of the wounded into the TARDIS before the fighting heats up."

"Uh, I really think I should be in the first line of defense."

Elastigirl caused her arm that was wrapped around her husband's ribs to constrict slightly causing him to wince painfully. "Your ribs are shot, Bob. I'm not letting you fight anyone if I can help it."

He managed a chuckle. "Okay, Helen, no need to get malicious." Going over to one of the makeshift cots, using his super-strength he carefully picked up the one that Ben-Gali of the Thundercats was sprawled out upon. "See, I moved carefully and there was hardly any pain," he said, through grit teeth.

Elastigirl shook her head with a smirk as she used her free arm to inflate under the cot of Telemachus Rhade, who was heavily bandaged and in a coma.

A man with a large, bald, bulbous head hurried between the husband and wife superheroes, having to suddenly limbo in order to avoid catching himself on Elastigirl's arm wrapped around her husband.

"Pardon me!" exclaimed Mr. Medulla, one of the faculty from Sky High, the school for super-powered kids on his world. He quickly scampered on to join in adding his mental might with those empowering Professor X, Khan catching him before he crashed into the other telepaths. "I may have a bruised left cerebral cortex, but I should be able to lend a thought-wave or two."

"Showoff," Mr. Incredible muttered as he conveyed across the battle-torn ground toward the TARDIS.

"I'm sure if his wife was here, she would be dragging him off to a safe place to heal, too," Elastigirl commented, giving her husband a small smirk.

"Yeah, well…" He paused as he watched the Igoo take on Lightning Lord while Thing faced a combined attack from Titania and Silver Slasher. The Commander and his sidekick, the All-American Boy, teamed up to take down Nemesis Kid, who was trying to run away from the two crime-fighters. The third Doctor could be seen holding his own using his Venusian karate against the freshly de-Borged Jitsu. Zandor fought off the mantis-like alien Zorak from trying to eat some of the wounded that had not yet been taken to the TARDIS. Alexander Dane, Jason Nesmith, Fred Kwan and Tommy Webber were using laser rifles to force back Shredder's Foot ninjas while Shredder himself tried to free himself from Laliari's Thermian tentacles. Zandor used his slingshot to fire some of his few remaining explosive energy rocks causing Destro and Tri-Klops to go flying through the air. Iceman struggled to hold his own against the Sun Emperor who was attacking him with sadistic glee. Frozone added his freezing powers against the fiery 30th century villain, but even together, Iceman and Frozone were just barely holding the Sun Emperor back. Tung Lashor used his elongated tongue to wrap around and choke Rogue. Due to her mutant abilities, Rogue absorbed Tung Lashor's powers (_much to her disgust_) rendering the reptilian humanoid unconscious.

Principal Powers managed to fly past the others and take on Skeletor himself, engaging him in a sparkling display of power that the villain had not been prepared for, but that did not take him out, thanks again to the power ring he bore.

The villains that had received Hammond's telepathic communication, quickly responded by leaving the remaining Borg drones for the heroes to defeat or be defeated by. The dark marvel Black Adam swiftly flew back, only deviating his course to smack the female heroine Jetstream out of the sky.

"Oh Bob!" Helen cried out, accidently tightening her arm around his chest as she watched Jetstream fall in the distance.

"Glk!" Mr. Incredible only managed to say through the pain, stumbling as he did so. Even falling, he tried to keep the Thundercat as safe as possible. But then just before Ben-Gali would hit the ground, a large gelatin mass of a light yellow intercepted them, cushioning the fall.

Bob looked up as part of the gelatin moved up and what appeared to be two dark masses that he assumed to be eyes regarded him. The list of allies that Professor X had imprinted in his mind told him that the obvious living thing in front of him was one of the group called the Herculoids, but whether it was the one called Gloop or Gleep. "Uh, thanks."

The jelly-like blob gurgled something untranslatable, before lifting the unconscious Thundercat onto it's body and rolling with it towards the safety of the TARDIS.

"Oh good, Mr. Elastic caught her."

"What?" Bob managed to say as he slowly got to his feet. "Who?"

"Mr. Elastic caught – I mean, Mr. Fantastic caught Jetstream."

"Mr. Fantastic? Isn't that one of the group that you said was a lot like our family? And he has abilities similar to yours?"

"Yes, I talked to Sue, that's Mr. Fantastic's wife, earlier. She has powers like a remarkably like Violet's."

Bob stretched his back carefully, grunting from the pain in his ribs. "Well, maybe later we can do a get-together and-"

Landing in front of Mr. Incredible was the formidable sight of Black Adam. Not giving the hero a chance to respond, the dark marvel hit him in the face with the power of a locomotive. Mr. Incredible flew back through the air, his wife tethered to him by her arm being pulled along with him, making her drop the injured Telemachus Rhade.

"Pathetic!" snarled Black Adam as he took stock of those around him. He ignored the bullets that bounced off his chest, as well as the injured Captain Mike Yates who lay on a cot a few yards away.

"Hammond called me to deal with this? Bah!"

A pink projectile flew at him and he arrogantly caught it in his bare hand. Instantly he regretted the action, as he felt himself being drained of power. Looking down at the other end of the pink fleshy line that was stuck to his hand, he was surprised to see that it was actually the extended tongue of Rogue. The power absorbing mutant had used the tongue elastic abilities she had absorbed from Tung Lashor to surprise attack the dark marvel. Using Black Adam's flight and speed, she rushed him to continue her absorption before he could find a way to disengage her.

There was a cracking noise as two more people appeared near the fighting. One was a thin, young woman with bush hair wearing a dark robe while the man whose arm she held wore a red, white and blue uniform and a circular shield. The man bent over slightly, but managed to stay upright.

"That was…different," he managed to say, before turning his head to spit.

"Sorry," came Hermione Granger's reply. "A person's first time apparating can usually result in them throwing up. But I did get you here like you asked."

"I'm fine, miss," responded Captain America, as he regarded the fighting starting up around them, while some of the wounded either helped those more injured then themselves or tried to form some resistance to the attackers. Reaching an arm around her, Captain America pulled her down suddenly even as he brought his shield up to reflect a series of bullets that would have struck them both.

"You should probably go now," the Avenger suggested, leaping away to deal with Destro and Baroness before they began firing at them again.

"Humph!" The brightest witch of her age frowned at being dismissed so readily. "It's not like I'm helpless. I- Protego!"

Her magic shield just managed to be in place to block the sudden attack from Evil-Lyn and Shadow Weaver. Hermione winced as she poured more of her magic into her shield, but looked up to note the locations of each of her attackers. "I need to distract them for just a moment."

She heard something like a missile fired behind her but the explosion that knocked Shadow Weaver sideways thirty feet let her know it was someone on her side. Both Hermione and Evil-Lyn paused in their casting, and the young witch used that moment to duck down and apparate behind the evil sorceress.

"Stupify!" she yelled, firing the stunning spell at Evil-Lyn's back, before apparating back to safety.

She sent two more stunning spells at the Foot ninjas, only hitting one of them. Then ducking down, she looked to see who had fired the missile-like weapons. A group of thirteen individuals were moving into the clearing, four of which seemed to be using bazookas for weapons. They seemed like such an odd group she couldn't help but to take another moment to stare. In the rear was a large thing moving on treads like a tank that she could only think was a robot. In front of the robot, almost as if he was urging the robot to hurry, ran a young red-haired boy. Near the boy, gasping, was an older man with silver hair, who gave the look of extreme cowardness. Then there was a man with a plastic manikin head that had been very badly battered and melted on a robotic humanoid shaped body carried one of the bazooka weapons. The next bazooka-carrying man was dark haired and dark skinned, wearing shiny, glittery outfit with long lapels and had long canines. Next to them was a terrified looking man who seemed to clutch his bazooka to his chest and had an 'H' tattooed to his forehead. The fourth bazooka-wielding man was a bit shorter, wore a leather jacket, and had to be the filthiest man she had ever personally seen. In contrast, next to the disgusting looking man was a very attractive woman who ran with unusual grace. Surprisingly, and without much effort, she was also carrying/dragging a mid-thirties man that looked to be barely conscious, but appeared unharmed. The next individual was the most remarkable. And definitely not Human. The alien humanoid stood at about three feet tall, was covered in long, orange fur and had a very large snout (She made a note to herself to be sure and introduce the creature to Luna before they left). It was the last three people that registered on mental identification list that Professor X had put in her mind.

She apparated over to them so as to not expose herself to anymore attacks.

"Admiral McCoy. Ambassador Spock. Captain Janeway."

Leonard McCoy nearly dropped his end of the stretcher that he and Spock were using to transport Kathryn Janeway. Upon seeing that it was just an eighteen to twenty year old young woman with only a small stick in her hand, he managed to relax. "What do you think you are doing jumping out at us like that? We could have dropped Janeway!"

"Sorry," before waving her wand at the crude stretcher making it feather light.

"What did you just do?" McCoy exclaimed, noting the loss of weight immediately.

"Obviously, the young woman is a telekinetic," remarked Spock, who had noted the movement of Hermione's wand as well as the loss of weight.

"Nope. Magic," Hermione declared.

"There's no such thing!" McCoy snapped.

"Perhaps this could be a discussion saved for another time," broke in Spock diplomatically. "As it is, we need to learn of the identities of those fighting in front of us." They eased Janeway onto the ground, allowing McCoy to grumble to himself well he brought out his medical tricorder to do a quick check on his patient.

"Admiral," Spock interrupted, "as the senior in command, what are your orders?"

McCoy scowled up at his Vulcan friend. "Are you serious, Spock? You know as well as I do what should be done; so let me tend to Janeway while you get the ball rolling."

Hermione was about to ask what he meant by that, when Spock addressed the rest of his group who had all taken cover and were catching their breaths. "Mr. Rimmer, Kryten, and the robot, I need you to guard against any Borg drones that may have followed us. Mr. Lister, Cat, watch the battle in front of us but don't fire on anyone until we can confirm which group may be on our side."

Hermione was about to interrupt when Spock addressed. "Now how is it that you know who we are?"

It took her a few minutes, sharing what she did know, and answering what questions he came up with.

"Spock," came McCoy's voice. Who had taken up his phaser rifle. "That's Khan and Sela, and she's doing something to Picard!"

The witch glanced to see what McCoy was referring to. "Uh, I can see a picture of your friend Captain Picard in my head, but the person over there whose temple Sela is touching is actually Professor Xavier. He's a powerful telepath who has helped us know who is one which side and such."

"Another doppelganger," Spock mumbled to himself. "Fascinating."

"Doppelganger? What do you mean?"

"In our fight to purge the Borg from the sections of the multiverse that they had invaded, we have encountered a number of individuals – some our own teammates or our allies – who have genetic or physical duplicates in parallel universes, some with no historical similarities, being born in different time periods with vastly different personalities."

Hermione was fascinated by the possibilities. "Before I go home, do you think I could look at some of the research you've compiled?"

"Perhaps after the hostilities are over; I will be seeking to make as many examines of people and get statements about the histories of their parallel worlds. I could use an assistant, if you are willing."

She nodded excitedly, almost bringing a smile to Spock's face.

"That's the Doctor's TARDIS over there, isn't it?" McCoy interrupted. "Looks like they've been taking the wounded inside; it being a lot safer inside, we should bring ours in as well."

"How are they getting everyone in there? You couldn't pack sardines that tightly." Will Robinson had been sitting quietly nearby, taking in all the information the others were discussing around him. Despite his incredible intelligence, many experiences, and mature behavior, most adults could never see past his youth, and simply dismiss him from 'grown-up' discussions.

"It's doorway is a tesseract," explained Hermione, sensing a kindred spirit where knowledge was concerned. "The Doctor is a time-lord who used it to transport through space and time."

"Then we can use it to get home!" This from the cowardly Dr. Zachary Smith, who likewise liked to sit unobserved and take in the conversations of others, but more like a lizard waiting to snap up an unsuspecting fly. Immediately, Dr. Smith was running toward the blue telephone box that people were going in and out of.

"Dr. Smith, wait!" Will turned to the others, and gave a hopeless shrugging gesture. "I better go after him before he gets into too much trouble," he said, sheepishly. "I would like to help with your project later, too, Ambassador Spock, if you'll let me."

"That would be acceptable," returned the Vulcan, thinking the boy reminded him of himself, somewhat, as a child. "And appreciated."

"Does that mean that we're taking John into that thing, too?" It was the woman Max Guevera. She had a fearlessness about her that surprised the Vulcan as did her strength. He hoped to get a scan of her later, but believe she would refuse.

Spock saw McCoy frowning as he looked around at the fighting. The heroes were holding their own for now, but the firepower being tossed around was not for the faint of heart. And they would have to head toward the fighting to get to the TARDIS. Then there was also the fact of Khan and Sela being between them and the TARDIS. "I suppose so, but wait a moment." He turned to Spock. "Any sign of the drones that had been tailing us?"

"They seemed to have been recalled."

" '_Recalled_'? What do you mean '_recalled_'?"

The Vulcan pointed toward the far end of the valley where people could still be seen fighting the Borg. "There they have the Borg Queen backed into a corner; there is a high probability that she will have called her drones to protect her."

The gruff doctor nodded. "Agreed, so let's get out of here. Cat, help Max with her friend Mr. Drake."

"Gladly!" perked up the Cat, handing his weapon to the small orange humanoid, "Here, hairball," before siding up alongside Max. "Miss me, sweetness?"

Max rolled her eyes. "Get on his other side, Cat, before I neuter you myself."

Cat let out a hiss before doing as instructed taking John Drake's arm over his neck in a shoulder carry. "You know, I think you are taking this hard to get thing too far."

Max mumbled something under her breath.

The snorted in annoyance. "And that's physically impossible. I know because I've tried."

Max gritted her teeth as she led the way, pulling Drake and therefore Cat along after her.

"Hey, what's this thing called and how do you use," spoke up the shorter, orange furred man, swinging the bazooka-like weapon around.

Dave Lister chuckled. "That, Alf, is your classic bazookoid: a plasma firing mining laser. The control settings are on the side and-"

It fired.

"-that's the trigger."

"Oops." Alf put one hand over his mouth, glanced around sheepishly.

The blast shot out towards where the combatant heroes and villains were clashing, striking the just arriving green-robed Sabbac.

"That was one of the bad guys, right?" asked the Melmacian.

"Um," Hermione watched as the Marvel Family villain crashed into bedrock and out of view. She ran through the list in her mind for just a second before answering. "Yeah. Sabbac. Major bad guy."

"Then good shot, right?"

"Ha ha! Right on, mate!" Lister and Alf exchanged high fives.

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news," interrupted Rimmer.

"No you're not," spouted Lister. "You love delivering bad news. In fact, you once started a singing telegram service that specialized in delivering bad news just so you could see the crushed looks in other people's faces."

"It would have been a great business venture except for the heart attacks, the lawsuits, and death threats." He shook his head dismissively. "But what concerns me right now is that evil-looking bloke Alf hit has gotten up and is heading this way. And not in the manner of inviting us over for beer and kippers."

Sabbac was indeed heading there way, fangs bared, flying about ten feet off the ground and flying directly at them.

"Smeg!"

Kryten, Lister and Rimmer began a barrage of super-heated plasma fired from their bazookoids, which the demonic villain evaded while closing the distance between them. Hermione sent her otter-shaped patronus against Sabbac suspecting that the villain's evil nature would flee from the shiny animal form. But while Sabbac did manage to keep from contact with Hermione's patronus, the villain flew around them trying with more fierce determination to get to them.

Gordon Shumway, otherwise known as Alf, fidgeted with the very large weapon he was trying to hold and aim at the same time. "Now which button was it that I push first again?" asked Alf. "This one?" The bazookoid he was holding shuddered slightly before falling to individual bits.

"That was the disarming button, sir," explained Kryten with a shake of his head. "Mr. Lister, sir, may I engage my panic mode now?"

From the side, Sabbac was struck by a beam of bluish-white and red light, blindsiding him across the battlefield.

"What?" Lister looked to see a white Volkswagen Beetle speeding across the landscape, a man standing up through the sunroof, firing something from handheld wand. "What was that?"

"I believe it is a charged particle beam composed of protons, sir," explained Kryten. "Very difficult to aim, but I think the positrons being fired are attracted to the negative energy empowering this Sabbac individual."

"Exactly what I was going to say," nodded Rimmer, appearing smug.

Lister rolled his eyes at his holographic companion. "Not that I'm complaining, but who's that?"

"Believe it or not," answered Hermione, "the Volkswagen is called Herbie. And he's really alive, or maybe haunted; I plan to try some tests later to determine which, or maybe it's even both. As for the man sticking out of the sunroof, that's Dr. Peter Venkman; he uses technology to catch ghosts."

While their comrades dealt with Sabbac, McCoy and Spock carried the now lightened, but still unconscious, Janeway toward the TARDIS, but stopping as they neared their old adversary, Khan Noonien Singh.

Khan was seated with his injured leg propped up slightly, and at an angle so that he could regard them as well as the fighting on the other side. But what struck both the admiral and ambassador as unexpected was that Khan kept his hands empty and where they could see them; his plasma rifle off to his side on the ground. They all knew, however, that it was a slightly empty gesture as Khan was a genetically enhanced Human and thus extremely fast.

"Khan."

"Spock."

"What is all this?" blurted McCoy, after they had lowered Janeway to the ground.

"Could you be more specific, doctor?" Khan managed a grin. "There is a lot going on right now."

"Cut the crap, Khan. What's Sela doing to the Picard lookalike?"

Khan's grin fell slightly. "You may find it hard to believe, but Sela and I have changed sides. Right now she is helping Professor Xavier, the man who looks like Picard, to fight back several of the Master's telepaths."

A look of scorn crossed McCoy's face while Spock merely raised an eyebrow. "Why the change of heart?"

Khan ignored the insulting tone and just answered the question. "I guess you could say that we have seen the bigger picture."

"And what do you interpret that to be?" asked Spock.

Khan shook his head slightly. "Doesn't really matter what we think it is; just that we're siding with you now."

"And what are your intentions right now?" asked the Vulcan.

Khan nodded to the side at those around Xavier. "Guarding them. I thought that was rather obvious."

"Don't get smart, Khan," barked McCoy, his phaser pointed directly at the genetically enhanced Human's chest. "Where are the others?" he demanded. "Your teammates."

Some of the anger became apparent in Khan's eyes. "I was captured by some alien hive-like creatures. Sela and some of the allies we made here in this place came to rescue me as well as some of their friends. My '_teammates_' went after the Borg. We did run into Lore here. He's somehow come under a young man named Foley's control. But unfortunately for Lore, the Borg infected Foley and thus control other the android, too. They left together to get assimilated."

McCoy nearly took his eyes off Khan to look for Data's evil twin. Spock preformed a scan of the area with his tricorder before imputing, "Despite conflicting energy reading from around us, I have to conclude that Lore is not in this valley."

"Gentlemen, Khan is telling you the truth."

McCoy looked in surprise. "Doctor, good to see you! Quite a fighting force you put together, too."

The time-lord gave them a toothy smile even as Max Guevera and Cat walked passed them to pick up Kathryn Janeway's stretcher to bring into the TARDIS. Khan watched them pass him, taking note of the Voyager captain's injuries, but said nothing.

They paused as loud blows could be heard being exchanged for above them in the air by Ultraman and Thor as they sped across the sky.

"What have you been doing, Doctor?" asked Spock.

The Doctor sighed. "We had a brief alliance with the Master's army. Together, we were not only able to force the Borg back, but he had them on the run. Then just a few moments ago, they decided to turn on us. Sadly, it wasn't unanticipated, but still very disheartening." He shook his mop of hair. "We had been moving all the wounded into the TARDIS for safety, but now I've had to order the removal of the Master's injured minions, except for the most critical cases, for safety reasons."

"Do you really think they would try to take it over?" asked McCoy. "As I understand it, the Master already has his own TARDIS."

"Not like mine. And it turns out that gaining control of my TARDIS was the Master's plan all along and one of the key reasons for agreeing to a work for Q2."

"So my team was due to fail no matter what?" Khan said in growing anger. "Betrayed by a nefarious time-lord?"

"At least in part," agreed the Doctor.

"Serves you right," McCoy added with a smirk.

"Admiral-," began the Doctor.

"Call me '_Bones_'."

"Bones, I would ask you to keep your animosity towards Khan to yourself. You have had decades to get over your last encounter together, yet for Khan it has only been a few days, if that. And still he has behaved better than you."

"You don't know his history!"

"Actually I do. And more so, I know all that he's done since rescued by Sela."

"And as I said," spoke Khan, "Sela saved my life; she says we should help all of you so that is what we are doing."

Bones looked as if he were trying to forcibly pass a kidney stone. "I'll have my eye on you, Khan, and when you show your true colors, I'll-"

An eight-foot tall, green, tentacled monster seen to appear almost from nowhere, swinging massive limbs at the cluster of telepaths.

In a blur of motion, Khan had grabbed his phaser rifle, and fired it's most devastating beam at it. The creature fell, collapsing on itself, reverting to that of an orange skinned Durlan minus the head. Chameleon Chief of the Legion of Super-Villains was dead.

And Khan Noonien Singh was the one that had saved the day.

**AUTHOR'S NOTES**

_Well, it's the beginning of another year and I'm still not done with this story. But I am closer. I just have to keep pushing to finish. Hope I still have readers out there. Please read & review._

**In Order of Appearance:**

Borg – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation

Skeletor – from the cartoon He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe

Imp – from the cartoon She-Ra: Princess of Power

Power Ring – from DC Comics (Earth-3)

Mist Master – from DC Comics (Earth-1)

Evil-Lyn – from the cartoon He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe

Shadow Weaver – from the cartoon She-Ra: Princess of Power

He-Man – from the cartoon He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe (mentioned only)

Brainiac – from DC Comics (Earth-1)

Lex Luthor – from DC Comics (Earth-1)

Alexei Luthor – from DC Comics (Earth-2)

Beast Man – from the cartoon He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe

Borg Queen – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation (mentioned only)

Nemesis Kid – from DC Comics (Earth-1)

Silver Slasher – from DC Comics (Earth-1)

Spider Girl – from DC Comics (Earth-1)

Panthor – from the cartoon He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe

Tung Lashor – from the cartoon She-Ra: Princess of Power

Grizzlor – from the cartoon She-Ra: Princess of Power

Rattler – from the cartoon She-Ra: Princess of Power

Mr. Incredible/Bob Parr – from the movie The Incredibles

Dash – from the movie The Incredibles

Catra – from the cartoon She-Ra: Princess of Power

Hector Hammond – from DC Comics (Earth-1)

Shredder – from the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Dr. Psycho – from DC Comics (Earth-1)

Esper Lass – from DC Comics (Earth-1)

Brain Wave – from DC Comics (Earth-2)

Professor X / Prof. Charles Xavier – from the movie X-Men: The Last Stand

Validus – from DC Comics (Earth-1)

Tharok – from DC Comics (Earth-1)

Wolverine – from the movie X-Men: The Last Stand (Mentioned Only)

Bizzaro – from DC Comics (Earth-1)

Vandal Savage – from DC Comics (Earth-2) (Mentioned Only)

Black Adam – from DC Comics (Earth-S)

The 4th Doctor – from the TV series Doctor Who

Enik – from the TV series The Land Of The Lost

Riddler – from DC Comics (Earth-1)

Zandor – from the cartoon Herculoids

Igoo – from the cartoon Herculoids

Thing / Ben Grimm – from the movie Fantastic Four

Sela – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation

Khan Noonien Singh – from the TV series Star Trek

Elastigirl – from the movie The Incredibles

Ben-Gali – from the cartoon Thundercats

Telemachus Rhade – from the TV series Andromeda

Mr. Medulla – from the movie Sky High

Lightning Lord – from DC Comics (Earth-1)

Titania – from DC Comics (Earth-1)

The Commander – from the movie Sky High

All-American Boy – from the movie Sky High

The 3rd Doctor – from the TV series Doctor Who

Jitsu – from the cartoon He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe

Zorak – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Alexander Dane – from the movie Galaxy Quest

Jason Nesmith – from the movie Galaxy Quest

Fred Kwan – from the movie Galaxy Quest

Tommy Webber – from the movie Galaxy Quest

Laliari – from the movie Galaxy Quest

Destro – from the cartoon G.I. Joe

Tri-Klops – from the cartoon He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe

Iceman – from the movie X-Men: The Last Stand

Sun Emperor – from DC Comics (Earth-1)

Frozone – from the movie The Incredibles

Rogue – from the movie X-Men: The Last Stand

Principal Powers – from the movie Sky High

Jetstream – from the movie Sky High

Gloop – from the cartoon Herculoids (mentioned only)

Gleep – from the cartoon Herculoids

Mr. Fantastic – from the movie Fantastic Four

Invisible Woman / Susan Richards – from the movie Fantastic Four (mentioned only)

Invisible Girl / Violet Parr – from the movie The Incredibles (mentioned only)

Captain Mike Yates – from the TV series Doctor Who

Hermione Granger – from the Harry Potter book series

Captain America – from the movie Captain America: The First Avenger

Baroness – from the cartoon G.I. Joe

The Robot – from the TV series Lost In Space

Will Robinson – from the TV series Lost In Space

Dr. Zachary Smith – from the TV series Lost In Space

Kryten – from the TV series Red Dwarf

The Cat – from the TV series Red Dwarf

Arnold Judas Rimmer – from the TV series Red Dwarf

Dave Lister – from the TV series Red Dwarf

Max Guevera – from the TV series Dark Angel

John Drake – from the TV series Secret Agent / The Prisoner

Alf / Gordon Shumway – from the TV series Alf

Luna Lovegood – from the book series Harry Potter (mentioned only)

Admiral Leonard 'Bones' McCoy – from the TV series Star Trek

Ambassador Spock – from the TV series Star Trek

Captain Kathryn Janeway – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager

Sabbac – from DC Comics (Earth-S)

Herbie – from the movie The Love Bug

Dr. Peter Venkman – from the move Ghostbusters

Lore – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation (mentioned only)

Jake Foley – from the TV series Jake 2.0 (mentioned only)

Data – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation (mentioned only)

Ultraman – from DC Comics (Earth-3)

Thor – from the movie Thor

The Master – from the TV series Doctor Who (mentioned only)

Q2 – one of the Q's from Star Trek: The Next Generation (my own character) (mentioned only)

Chameleon Chief – from DC Comics (Earth-1)


	45. Chapter 45

**A TANGLED WEB 8**

**Chapter 45**

**By Ordinaryguy2**

**Deep Space Nine**

**Currently orbiting Earth (thanks to the powers of Q)**

Quark's bar was bustling with activity. Word had gotten out that spectacular epic battles were underway, bringing every spare personnel still on board the space station to see. Quark had tried to set up betting pools on some of the more individual fights seen in the viewing portals that Q had set up, but Admiral Paris had quickly put a stop to that. Morn still managed a few discrete bets, some even with the admiral's son Tom before the young man decided the Lurian was getting too much of the better of him.

In the six previous incursions to route the Borg from the parallel universes that they had invaded, there had been six viewing portals, one for each member of the away team. Two members chosen from the Enterprise, two from Deep Space Nine, and from Voyager; one from each crew selected by Q and one each selected by Q's judge, another member of the Q Continuum known to them only as Q2.

But it was in the 6th universe that they had been working to clear the Borg that it had been discovered that Q2 had been manipulating the selection of which universe to fight on. A fact the Q Continuum had been very displeased to learn.

As punishment, the two Qs would have to compete against each other in order to see who would be the first to defeat the Borg, the loser would then lose their omnipotent powers.

For this new and final contest, Q would get to select two champions from Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Picard's Enterprise, and an additional two bonus champions from the legendary Captain James T. Kirk's Enterprise. Despite Q's reluctance, each of the captains insisted on going, including a newly, mostly rejuvenated Admiral McCoy representing the older Enterprise, and Ambassador Spock was brought from Romulus to accompany his old friend. Q reached back through time to bring back Ro Laren, a former Enterprise ensign, right before she would have been killed in a Cardassian attack on a Maquis colony. The Klingon general Martok filled the last Deep Space Nine spot. And Kes, an Ocampa from the Delta Quadrant who had radically evolved after being exposed to the powerful telepathic influx of Species 8472 and became a powerful psychic entity made of living energy, was brought forth and forced into corporal form and made Captain Janeway's companion.

Q2'sw selection consisted of the various enemies of the four crews. From the earlier Enterprise, plucked just before their demise, was the evil Captain Kirk from the Mirror Universe, as were as the infamous Khan Noonien Singh. Against Picard's Enterprise, Q2 chose Lore, the android '_brother_' of Starfleet officer Data. Sela, the determined half-Romulan daughter of the late Enterprise Security officer Tasha Yar, who had been time-tossed into the past due to a time paradox, was also picked. The Deep Space Nine opponents had been perhaps the most obvious. Gul Dukat had history with the station long before it's name had been changed by Starfleet having been commander of the station while head of the Cardassian occupation of the planet Bajor. A female Changeling, one of the shapeshifting Founders from the Gamma Quadrant, in charge of the Dominion forces fighting to take control of the Alpha Quadrant, was another selection. The two against Voyager had been a bit more difficult as the starship spent most of it's time trying to cross the reaches of space to return to Federation territory, not staying in one place long enough to earn many earnest foes. Seska, a Cardassian undercover agent who had infiltrated a Maquis cell, only to end up stuck in the Delta Quadrant and part of the mixed Starfleet-Maquis crew of Voyager. The Alpha Hirogen had come into contact with the Voyager crew, capturing them, then putting their fighting skills against them using scenarios from their holodeck. They had parted in peace, after Janeway convinced them that they could use the holodeck technology to meet their need to hunt and pit themselves against other adversaries, and not have their species spread throughout the universe.

The six viewing portals had been increased to sixteen, one for watching each participator, spread throughout Quark's bar. The Starfleet technicians had monitoring devices around each portal, but still left room for all the patrons of the bar to have a good view of what was going on.

Q2's team took the first hit as Seska was beheaded early on arrival by hunting aliens, and Lore lost an arm. Captain Janeway had been injured when her group had been attacked by several intergalactic bounty hunters, leaving her incapacitated and slowing down her teammates. Khan had been captured by Xenomorphs and orally impregnated before being rescued by Sela and some new allies, who managed to unimpregnat him. Khan and Sela managed to make it to where the battle lines between the armies of the Doctor and the Master were located, but no longer seemed to be working to join their comrades or the Master's forces. Lore had his arm reattached by an individual known as the Professor who was also the 7th regeneration of the timelord they knew as the Doctor who had taken the opportunity to add a set of protocols called the Three Laws of Robotics. Lore had then been impressed into the service of a young man by the man of Jake Foley who forced Lore to come with him. Foley was later injected with Borg nano-probes placing both him and Lore under control of the Borg Queen. In the presence of the Borg Queen and a green-skinned man, who planned to convert Lore and Foley as an experiment into one being as a drone. Meanwhile General Martok had allied himself with the Decepticon leader Megatron to assassinate the Master, but at the crux of the fight a young boy that the Master called the Other appeared and shot them all with red beams of light that left them frozen as red statues. The rest of the agents of the two Qs managed to converge on the Borg Queen as reluctant allies, but with Q's forces greatly outnumbering those of Q2's thanks to the army brought by the Doctor.

But for now all the two Qs could do was wait, having been banned from any further interference by the rest of the Q Continuum. They sat together at a table that had the best view of the projected events occurring with their chosen champions. So far everyone had given them space, including the glowering Guinan sitting at a nearby table, making Q more apprehensive than he already did.

The Q entity using the moniker Q2 frowned as watched the progress of his team fighting their way through the Borg Queen's drone forces for what may be the final battle. He had four of his champions present – Gul Dukat, the Alpha Hirogen, the shapeshifting Founder, and the Captain Kirk from the Mirror Universe. Meanwhile, his adversary, Q, had only three of his champions present – Captain Picard, Captain Sisko and Ro Laren. But Q also had dozens of warriors fighting alongside them thanks to the recruitment done by the Gallifreyian known as the Doctor.

"Perhaps," spoke Q, "if you conceded defeat, our brethren in the Continuum will allow you to keep some of your powers." It was spoken with a condescending tone, but those that knew Q could tell that he was actually trying to give his rival a way out of an otherwise more gruesome fate.

Q2 managed a sneer. "You haven't won yet. Your forces may yet fail to take down the Borg Queen. If they do, the Q Continuum may have us try all over again. And then I may win. Or else they may decide to take away both of our powers."

A look of aghast crossed Q's face. "They wouldn't do that, would they?"

Q2 took a second to enjoy the fear in the other's face. "At this point I don't think either of us should be surprised by anything they choose to do regarding the two of us."

Having nothing more to say, Q quietly watched the viewing portals as he contemplated this new insight.

**Land Of The Lost (micro-universe or pocket universe)**

**Above ground battlefield near the entrances to the tunnels leading to the Borg Queen**

Noting that distance between him and those battling around him to be safe enough, the young man knelt down to take a closer look at the unusual wonder before him. Stunned and bound lay a humanoid creature that seemed to have tree bark for skin and green leaves for hair. But what had been even more captivating was when the plant-man had thrown seeds and spores around creating large, formidable, aggressive plants of various types that were controlled. And to Neville Longbottom's surprise, totally void of magic. Or at least any magic he has ever seen. "How is this possible?"

"Are you going to be long, Neville?"

The young man didn't look up from his prize, instead entrusting his girlfriend of two months to shield him if necessary. "Just need a few minutes, Luna." He took out a handful of glass vials from an inner pocket of his robe and put them next to him, then donned a pair of gloves before taking samples carefully with a tweezers.

Luna sent up another magic shield to protect them from incoming fire before sending her shiny white patronus rabbit chasing after the super-powered astral form of Doctor Double X, causing the astral villain to flee into his Human host, who Luna then stunned with a _stupefy_ spell. Her patronus sat on the costumed villain's head and set to thumping it's foot, daring the evil astral version of the man to come out and fight.

As if without a care in the world, Luna bent down to see what her boyfriend was trying to do. "Neville, the nargles are strong with you right now," she said, making an observation. Then looked from him, back to what he was doing with one of his tools, and then back to him again. "Would you please tell me why you are prodding about the male-dryad's groin with your tweezers?"

The young man's hand froze. Trust Luna to make the situation even more awkward, which is usually one of the things he loved about her. Regardless, while the plant-man, known as the Floronic Man, didn't really have anything resembling mammal genitalia showing, Neville had been collecting samples from the area of leaves that wove around like underwear or shorts – technically the '_groin_'. "The plants he was creating. He seemed to gather the seeds or pollen for them from this area of his body …well, mostly there." He made sure to collect some samples from the leaves on the Floronic Man's wrist, ankles and head as well, just in case there was various variety kept separate there.

He didn't feel bad about stealing – that is, taking samples – from the villain, since it had been the villain that had attacked him in the first place. Well, technically, the villains had begun pulling out, foregoing the alliance they had made with the heroes to fight the Borg together. Wolverine, Thundarr, Coach Boomer and a young woman named Faith had cut off a group of the villains retreat, insisting that they stick around and hold up their end of the fight to make sure the Borg were defeated.

That's when the fighting between the two groups began again. Fortunately for the heroes, the Borg were still retreating into the caves to go protect their queen from an attack already going on inside, and a majority of the villains had already taken off to regroup.

Luna's wand jerked up as he created another shield as an object fell into the ground just shy of the _protego_ shield.

"That's silly. Someone just threw-"

The flash grenade lit up the area, blinding Luna, causing her to stumble back and drop her protective mystic shield.

Neville had been only partially blinded, and immediately noted the two large figures charging toward them. Without hesitation, Neville cast a quick growing spell on one of the vials that he had filled and tossed it toward the oncoming attackers just before casting another _protego_ shield, keeping himself between Luna and any attackers.

While he tried blinking the spots out of his eyes, he could just make out the tickle of breaking glass as whatever the seeds were that he had thrown were. The two attackers yelled out in surprise as well as fear, making Neville pour more energy into his mystic shield to protect Luna and him from whatever the plants of the Floronic Man were doing.

The ground had been making a crunching noise as the plants forced their roots into it. Its branches crackled as it grew and moved, making noise almost as loud as gunshots.

When Longbottom's vision cleared and the dust had mostly settled, he was surprised to see that the plants that he had grown were grayish-brown, with thick trunks that went up twenty feet before twisting around like a briar patch of thorny branches over fifty feet wide. In the midst of those branches stuck out two humanoids – one looked part rhinoceros wearing camouflage military pants and the other part warthog with a purple Mohawk haircut and large brass nose ring.

Recognizing them from the telepathic list he'd been given, Neville knew the two individuals as Bebop and Rocksteady, henchmen to an evil ninja warlord named Shredder. They were considered somewhat inept and stupid, but still rather dangerous.

Bebop squealed as the branches tightened painfully around him, while Rocksteady took the more productive approach of trying to gore the nearest branches with his rhino horn. The gouges in the branches let pour a stream of gravel that had been pulled up through the roots during is magically induced growth.

"Hey! Hey, we give up! We give already!" squealed Bebop as a particularly thorny vine rode up between his legs.

A snarl appeared on Neville's face as he found that his two attackers reminded him of two of his former classmates, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle; as they both used surprise, vicious attacks on those they deemed weaker than them, then turned to cower in fear instantly the moment the tables were turned on them. "_Petrificus Totalus_!" He hit both of the mutated henchmen with the spell making them stiff as a board. With a spare thought, Neville sent another '_petrificus totalus_' spell, this time hitting the new plant to keep it from entangling anyone else. But he left Bebop and Rocksteady hanging where they were.

After glancing around to make sure that no one else was preparing to attack him, Neville hurried to Luna's side to check on her condition.

"Did you get the genus and species of the dragon that exploded, Neville? I do hope it wasn't a Crumple-Horned Snorkack; they're nearly extinct already."

"Wasn't a dragon, dear; just some kind of flashy Muggle weapon." Cautiously, Neville used a mild healing spell on her eyes, not daring anything stronger.

The blond witch looked around as she blinked her eyes to try remove the spots she was still seeing. "It was like looking at a Niffler's paradise; all bright and shiny."

An outcry followed by some severe swearing made Neville jump. A dark-haired, athletic beauty had just tossed away a short, thin man in an orange serpent costume.

"Damn it! He bit me!" In a vindictive move that could have killed her opponent, Faith threw her long, wicked looking knife at the super-villain known as Copperhead. But whether it was due to the snake-like speed of the criminal, or the venom in her veins affecting her, or the combination thereof, the knife ended up only grazing the tail of Copperhead's costume.

Copperhead hissed gleefully as he watched Faith stumble to one knee. "Ssssweet thing, you may not know it, but you're dead already." Then, turning away, the serpentine super-villain slithered away to safety, hissing merrily.

Faith cursed again when she realized she couldn't get back on her feet and catch the snake-man, having to retort to throwing rocks at his retreating form. Few even came close to hitting the moving target.

"Let me help you with that."

Faith whirled on the speaker only to tumble onto her back.

"Easy, Faith" Neville said calmly. "We're on the same side."

Faith squinted at the young wizard, as Neville let her check her mental list to see whose side he was supposed to be on, all while taking off her belt and securing it around her left leg as a tourniquet to stop the spread of the poison. "Your last name is Longbottom? Seriously?" she said, sounding more surprised at his unusual family name than the shock of the venom in her system.

Neville sat Luna down on a large rock nearby before pulling out a pouch smaller than his hand from his pocket, tapped it with his wand so that it would enlarge to regular size as a medical bag.

Prepared as he hoped to be, Neville cast a diagnosis charm at the Slayer to get the results on the paper in his hand. The potency of the venom startled him, especially the fact that the young woman was somehow still alive. Her constitution was incredible to the point of making him double check the spell he had cast. Regardless of how strong she was though, the poison was still exacting it's toll on the dark-haired woman, her head and eyes beginning to droop.

"Bloody hell!" muttered the Longbottom heir. "I know how to deal with poisonous plants, but this is some kind of snake venom. I – I don't know how to counter this." He glanced over at Luna who was reaching into his medical bag. "Luna?"

The blond girl placed something she had taken out of the compartments in the bag and placed it in his hand. It was a small stone.

"A bezoar?"

"Bezoars neutralize poison," she simply stated.

"But-"

"And venom is a type of poison," Luna added.

He sighed. "But bezoars will only work on someone who is magical."

Luna regarded him with her silvery eyes, showing that her sight was clearly returning. "Neville, she is magical; just not the way you and I are."

Neville's eyes snapped back to the magical notes he had in his hand. There is was, a magical signature, however unusual, was still there.

"Tell Buffy…" Faith muttered, as she tried to keep from laying down. "…sorry for all the crap. She's…good person. Helluva Slayer. And it was me…broke her favorite…katana."

"Neville, she's starting to foam at the mouth. If you're going to do something, it better be quick."

Neville carefully knelt behind Faith, and opened her mouth to put the small rock in, then closed her mouth. "Now just hold still and let the bezoar do it's work," he said, trying to sound encouraging.

Instead she began to tremble and her eyes rolled into the back of her head.

"Luna! We did something wrong! It's not working!"

The blond witch bit her thought in contemplation even as she seemed to be tallying something invisible in the air. "Her magic must be too different. Hmmm, perhaps if you try pouring some of your magic into her, the bezoar will kick in and start doing it's job."

Neville swallowed, then took a calming breath. Placing a hand on either side of Faith's head, he began to gentle pour his inner magic into her, increasing the amount when he got the hang of it.

"I think it's starting to work," commented Neville. "Yes, she's not dying quite as fast now; you are definitely having an effect."

Neville poured out his magic as a torrent. Yes, he could feel the bezoar now reacting to his magic in the young woman. The poisonous venom was starting to be pulled free from where it was damaging muscle, blood vessels, and nerve clusters. The overall effect Neville was finding to be rather ethereal, as if new senses were being awakened. He could feel the blood pumping the poison to be near the bezoar where it was neutralized. He was even more surprised when he noticed Faith's body already starting to work at repairing itself. It was then that he noted the magical essence of the Slayer and moved his magic closer to examine it. It was so wonderful that he couldn't help reaching out to -

"Neville," Luna spoke into his ear, "if your magic forms a soul bond with her I will still consider that cheating and take the appropriate steps against you."

Instantly, Neville's magic retracted back to him and he pulled his hands away from Faith's head. "Wha-what?"

She tisked with a wily smile. "I just can't determine why the nargles are so fascinated with your brain."

"What?"

Faith brought her hand up to her head with a groan. "I'm gonna kill that snake guy and make some really nice shoes and belts out of his hide." Reaching into her mouth, she pulled out the bezoar and look at it in surprise. "Why'd I have a rock in my mouth?"

"It's a bezoar; we used it to neutralize the poison," Neville explained.

She regarded the rock for a moment. "Huh, could come in handy. Where can I get one of these?"

"From the stomach of a goat," Luna answered cheerfully.

Faith dropped the rock in disgust. "And you put that in my mouth?! Next time let me die!" She spat and tried to clear her throat out, rubbing her teeth and tongue with her shirt.

"Duly noted," Luna said with a smile. The blond witch handed Faith her belt, having removed the tourniquet from her leg and transfigured a bandage over the bite site. "Hmm, the nargles don't seem to like you at all."

Confused, Faith asked, "What's a nargle?" just a sonic yell followed by a nearby explosion happened. Neville pulled Luna behind him even as something sharp tore into his left arm.

"Merlin that hurts!" He eased off of Luna to sit up. Examining his arm, he was surprised to see a finger-sized piece of glass sticking out of his arm, which was already saturating the sleeve of his robe with blood.

"Oh Neville, just look at yourself," Luna calmly chastised. She waved her wand to bring his medicine kit over to her, and she began to work at fixing him even as he moved so that he was sitting with his back against a large boulder.

"Thanks," he said, after Luna had applied a numbing charm. While he was still in shock, he knew after a bit that the pain would have soon kicked in otherwise.

"I'll stand guard while you patch him up," Faith told them.

Neville blinked in surprise. "Are you sure you're up to that?"

Faith shrugged as she slowly got to her feet. "I'm not quite 5 by 5 yet, but I think I can still kick some serious butt. I'm tougher than I look. Besides, I owe you one."

He nodded in response, but kept his right arm free and clear so that he could use the wand he held tightly in his hand.

Trying not to think of Luna trying to extract the glass fragment that was stuck in the bone of his arm, Neville looked out to see the fighting still ongoing.

The space-faring mage known as the Sorcerer was using his magic wand against the formidable powers of Princess Ariel. Near them, the fur covered Ookla was struggling to free himself after being encased in ice by Feron's freeze ray. Meanwhile, Thundarr was using his sun sword to attack Moltar. Lion-O grappled his a formidable shark humanoid called the Remora, a deadly space pirate, as attested by the bloodied form of Panthro at their feet. Nightcrawler teleported in and grabbed the villain known as the Commander from behind, and teleported him away before her could shoot Thundarr in the back. A black-furred feline humanoid called the Cougar had managed to use his shrink ray on Wolverine, shrinking him down to 6 inches. Cougar had made a mistake on ignoring Wolverine after that in order to try shrink someone else. Wolverine used the advantage of surprise to attack Cougar's feet with his adamantium claws, effectively crippling him while also bringing the rest of Cougar down to Wolverine's level. The Wizard was trying to use his ability to create illusions to stop any attacks on his person, but the young woman, River Tam, simply ran through them, and then began to pumble the man in a manner that make Neville wince.

"Are you all right, Neville?"

The young man glanced at the pretty blond before him, then glanced down at his now bandaged arm. "Yeah, I was just watching some of the fighting. I noticed that all the villains fighting over there are all from the same universe and fight a superhero who calls himself Space Ghost."

Luna hummed to herself before responding. "Do you think he's a real ghost?"

Neville shrugged. "Dunno. Professor X's mental identification chart didn't seem to cover that." Taking careful aim with his wand, Neville sent a strong '_stupefy_' spell at the villain called the Sorcerer, knocking him out, while Luna sent a melting spell at the ice still holding Ookla prisoner.

"Hey, if you two are back to fighting than so am I," Faith said with a grin, pulling a large dangerous looking knife out and spinning it in her hand. "But keep an eye out for that snake that bit me. He's gonna make me a pair of boots, a belt, and maybe a jacket if I don't tear him up too much."

"If there is enough left," asked Luna, "could I have enough to make a headband. I found the color of his scales to be very fascinating."

Faith grinned and nodded. "Sure. You know, you're alright."

They watched as Faith went out hunting Copperhead and came across the fish-like aliens Lurker and One-Eye. She quickly began taking her frustrations out on the two space pirates, breaking many of their bones.

"I like her," commented Luna.

Neville gapped for a second. "Luna, she's obviously cr-" He paused. He couldn't accuse Faith of being crazy with all the not-so-nice teasing Luna had received while attending Hogwarts. "-dangerous. She's very dangerous." 

"That doesn't mean she can't be a nice person."

They watched in silence as she first beheaded One-Eye and then gutted Lurker.

"And she's very thorough."

The couple barely had time to move as two bare-chested men tumbled past them exchanging rock crushing blows. One wore a horned metal helmet while the other had on a horned animal skin that he wore as a hooded cape.

Neville had to form a mystic shield in front of them to keep the two brawlers from crashing into them. "Who the bloody hell were they?"

"Language, Neville," Luna chastised. "The one with the metal hat is King Kull, king of the Beastmen, though he is also the last of his kind, so he really can't be considered a king anymore. He's super-strong and surprisingly intelligent despite his being a brute. He's known to fight a group called the Marvel Family."

"So the other guy is on our side?"

The blond witch nodded. "He's a late arrival. Just got indoctrinated by Professor X before the Professor became too busy to talk to anyone. He calls himself the Mighty Mightor, and he's an actual caveman." They both winced when Mightor sent an energy blast from his wooden club, striking King Kull in the face.

"Ouch, I would have thought that would take him out," Neville commented as the two fighters kept exchanging blows.

"Hey! Neville! Luna! Get over here and help!"

Both glanced over to where Ron Weasley was waving to them. It was quite evident that there was blood on his hands. Neville hurriedly grabbed his medical and the two of them apparated over.

The first thing that was evident was that they were near the epicenter of the glass explosion as evident by the shards and chunks strewn about the ground. It also evidently result in the two bloodied bodies Ron and another young man were kneeling next to.

"What happened here?" Neville asked, while Luna used her wand to banish away the glass on the ground near the two injured people so they could safely treat them without getting cut up in the process.

The young man, who they recognized as Jesse Kilmartin of the Mutant X group, started the explanation. "Coach Boomer here," he indicated the bloodier victim, "thought it would be a good idea to use his supersonic voice to shatter Glasstor, an alien made totally out of glass."

Neville gently touched his bandaged arm. "I think I caught a fragment from that explosion."

"My friend Shalimar was hit by more than a fragment," Jesse said bitterly.

Luna had not been still during all this during all this, but had been casting diagnostic spells on Shalimar Fox. "The good news is that nothing vital was hit, but she is going to need a blood-replenishing potion."

"Will that work on a Muggle, even a mutant one?"

"If not, then we can try the same technique that worked on Faith."

"But she at least had some magic to work with."

"There's a little bit of magic in everything, Neville; you ought to know that by now, even though it is just marginal, it is still there."

"But what if it's not enough?"

"We won't know until we try." She paused and cocked her to one side. "Unless we take too long talking about it and they die first."

"Will you two just start healing these two!" shouted Ron at them. "I'll stand guard with Jesse; besides I don't think I have the stomach for this."

"He's right," Neville admitted. "How about you remove the glass from one site, then I'll seal it closed? After that we can try the blood-replenishing potions."

Luna tapped the side of her head with her wand while she thought. "Sounds like you've chased away most of the Nargles. But I think I'll cast a stasis charm over Coach Boomer first. Pity his hand is missing. I don't think there's anything we can do about that." 

"It looks like it was cut off with a chainsaw," muttered Jesse, as he worked to control his gag reflex. He quickly turned to join Ron on watch finding the battle going on easier on his eyes than seeing the large glass chunks being removed from Shalimar's body or the bloody mess that was Coach Boomer.

"Okay," Ron started. "Not only do we have to watch over them," he said, regarding his two friends and the two people that they were trying to save. "But over by the underground entrance over there are two people working on taking down the Borg from the inside."

Jesse saw a couple hundred yards from them, slightly sheltered by some large rocks, was a man in black laying on a blue padded table about a foot of the ground. Kneeling over the man, with a gun drawn was a dark-haired woman also in black, obviously standing guard over him.

"How are they helping to take down the Borg?" Jesse couldn't help but ask.

"Not sure of the particulars," Ron said, scratching his chin. "Something about him -he's Neo, by the way- astrally projecting himself into the minds of the Borg."

"Somehow I think she can protect him just him," Jesse concluded, as they watched Trinity shoot down the Penguin after he had come to close to where she and Neo were.

Ron and Jesse paused and watched the fighting, trying to resist the urge to rush out and help their side, and instead stay and guard Neville and Luna as they worked their magic.

Somehow the shark-like Remora had taken Lion-O down, but was now facing the amphibious humanoid Abe Sapien. Despite being under attack, Cougar managed to use his shrink ray on Nightcrawler and Ookla, both of which were attacking the feline-like villain along with the miniature Wolverine despite their small size. Mina Harker and her new protégé, Harmony Kendall, could be seen off to the side sucking the life blood out of the villainous Commander, his hands pinned to his sides and his legs broken at odd angles.

On their other side, the deep-pink alien Kanjar Ro was trying his hardest to kill Van Helsing before Van Helsing could kill him. Captain Dylan Hunt and Beka Valentine were trying to fight their way through the animated tattoos of the Tattooed Man who was currently attacking them with vampire bats. Poison Ivy was finding her abilities to control plants to not be very effective against the wondrous Wasp. Shadow Thief had been toying with Charles Gunn when the villain was suddenly introduced to the discovery that somehow the Invisible Woman's force fields could touch his intangible form, and was rendered inert before he could do anything about it.

Human Torch was flaring up to fight the effects of Feron's freeze ray. The werewolf known as Oz was using great determination in trying to open up the armor of the last surviving cyberman with limited success, having managed to tear off on of it's legs. The temporal being known as Steel used his abilities to freeze himself to absolute zero while engaging the Volcano Man in battle. Dyna Girl could be seen using the ElectaCom on her wrist against both Signal Man and the Key at the same time.

On a nearby rise on the terrain, the Flash villain known as Abra Kadabra was enjoying focusing his technological inspired '_spells_' against those of the techno-mage Galen while everyone gave them a wide berth for fear of being turned inside out, turned into glass, or just not existing anymore. Iron Man, having already taken down the Parasite, was now being blasted about by Star Sapphire, who wasn't about to give him a reprieve to collect his wits. Fortunately, the X-Man Storm, having caused the other tunnel entrances to collapse with her lightning so that the few remaining drone above ground wouldn't be able to go protect their Queen, was able to come to Tony Stark's assistance and help turn the tide against Star Sapphire.

The evil alternate reality version of Batman who called himself Owlman was having the battle of his life against the vampiric Angel, both battlers suffering from several contusions, severe cuts and broken ribs with neither seeming able to get the upper hand. Liz Sherman was using her fire abilities to burn the massive thorny vines the villainess Thorn was sending her way with the intent to kill her. Allan Quatermain had managed to put a lead bullet through the eye of Dr. Polaris, killing him instantly, just as he was swooping in to clear away the heroes with his magnetic might.

Jesse Kilmartin and Ron Weasley were suddenly pulled out of the way just as Dr. Polaris' body landed almost exactly where they were.

"You guys," gasped the man who had evidently pulled them out of the way of Dr. Polaris' crash, "should really-" He paused again, but this time Jesse and Ron could tell that it was from pain as was also evident by how he was holding his ribs with his right arm. "You really need to watch your surroundings in dangerous situations," the costumed man managed to say without stopping.

"THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN A THREE-IN-ONE SWING!" came a complaint from an unusually pale, gaunt man dressed in black robes and holding a large scythe.

Ron gapped in horror at the figure in front of him. Here he was having his second encounter with Death. He tried to say something but couldn't due to his brain not working. Later he would be glad that he didn't poop or pee himself.

"OH, WHAT'S THE USE? THIS IS STILL MY VACATION AND I AM GOING TO FINISH MY GAME OF GOLF WITH NO MORE INTERUPTIONS. DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?"

Wide-eyed, Ron nodded, not being able to say anything. And trying not to think just how close the Grim Reaper's scythe had come to killing him.

The anthropomorphic entity of death stepped up to a golf ball that had been unnoticed on the ground, then using his scythe as a golf club, he lined up his shot and took it despite a nearby bolt of lightning striking the ground and showering them with dirt.

Ron, Jesse and the new costumed man watched as the golf ball flew over the combatants, through the wispy body of the villain Mist, and landing near a small green area where a golf flag marked a hole. The ball bounced twice before rolling across the grass and into the golf hole. Just off to the side, Death's golf partners stood waiting for him. Gomez Addams was grinning from ear to ear and smoking a cigar while Herman Munster was jumping up and down in excitement with Uncle Fester and Cousin Itt along with a very reluctant looking man in an old, beat-up wizard outfit by the name of Rincewind. What was surprising was seeing one of their team, Carl the Gnome, standing there next to the Addams butler, Lurch, and smoking one of Gomez's cigars. Carl had evidently bowed out of the fighting and was now happily just a spectator.

As Death walked on, the three mortals left behind shook of the experience though only Ron would be able to remember the event clearly from then on due to his being a wizard.

"Hey, you're Zoom!" Jesse exclaimed to the costumed man that had saved his life.

Despite the horrible beating the superhero Zoom a.k.a. Jack Shepard had recently incurred from the evil speedster Johnny Quick, Zoom manage to stand just a little straighter. "You've heard of me?"

"Yeah," Jesse said, "In my universe, you're a comic book hero."

The wind seemed to leave Zoom's sails. But for only a moment. "Was it a popular comic book? Was there a movie deal based on it? Is it a favorite at Comic-Cons?"

"Nah, it only lasted a few years before falling to obscurity. I only know about it because I saw some in the trash, and decided to read them."

"Sounds like my life," Zoom muttered, as he touched one of the many bruises on his face. They paused to watch Mightor send King Kull soaring at them from a haymaker punch before flying after him. Ron used the '_protego_' spell to create a protective magic barrier which the superhuman Beastman roughly bounced off of and onto the hard ground.

"Why aren't you guys joining in the fighting?" 

"We're guarding the medical team," Jesse said, pointing behind them.

Zoom glanced over and then blanched. "That's a lot of blood."

"Hey, your ribs are broken, yeah?" asked Ron.

"That's what my ribs are telling me."

Ron looked through his pockets for a few seconds before pulling out a small glass vial. "Here," he said, thrusting the vial at the man. "Drink this, it'll knit together of your ribs as well as align them correctly in no time."

Zoom looked at it with grave suspicion. "What is it?"

"It's a Skele-Gro potion. Tastes really nasty though." He popped the cork and held it out.

"I think I'll pass, thanks anyway," he said with a grimace, his eyes watering after catching a whiff of the potion.

Shrill screams drew their attention as Catwoman used her cat-o-nine tails whip to try keep Cheetara of the ThunderCats away from her. Cheetara was already sporting a few welts from the whip and was not about to let Catwoman get away unscathed after hurting her.

"Now that's a catfight," Zoom commented, before wincing as Cheetara got past the whip and tackled her opponent, leaving the two to resort to fists and claws in such close proximity.

"They're going to kill each other!" Jesse exclaimed, stepping forward.

Ron sent out two quick '_stupefy_' spells hitting both women, leaving them unconscious.

"Why'd you stun both of them? I understand stunning Catwoman, but why the other?" Zoom limped over at superspeed, and pulled Cheetara off of Catwoman with a grunt of pain from his ribs. Fortunately, neither woman was bleeding too dangerously.

"Wasn't sure Cheetara would stop; she looked like she had a bloodlust thing going on, you know what I mean? Kinda like a werewolf, all out of control." Ron looked at both men for some form of reassurance that he had done the right thing.

"Better safe than sorry," Jesse offered. "But you get to tell her you stunned her, not me."

Ron grimaced, then sent a calming spell at Cheetara even though she wasn't awake, hoping when she did become conscious she at least would come after him.

The Mighty Mightor charged past them again, but this time he was clashing with the super brawny Ibac, leaving behind him King Kull stretched out on the ground with his head caved in with a large rock.

Spotting the Cheetah about to pounce on Allan Quatermain from behind, Ron quickly used his wand to banish several small pebbles at her, effectively peppering her with rocks and making her flee.

Both men just barely realized someone was behind them before they were attacked. Jesse managed to make himself dense enough with his powers to survive Solomon Grundy's fist. Ron's shield barely held from the arcane blasts from Felix Faust using '_the Flames of the Faltine_'. Ron used the '_Avis_' charm to create a flock of small birds to distract and attack the blue garbed wizard who waved them all away with a withering spell. Ron followed with '_Brackium Emendo_', and managed to remove all the bones in Faust's left leg, causing him to pitch forward onto the ground. Using that moment, Ron turned and sent a quick '_Confundo_' charm to calm and still Solomon Grundy who was in the process of bashing Jesse deep into the ground. Felix Faust was not out of the fight though, and was just about to hit Ron with '_the Winds of Watoomb_', when a strong telepathic presence knocked him out.

Ron gasped when he realized he had turned his back on an opponent that was not fully incapacitated. "Harry and Hermione will chew me out for sure." Both Harry and Hermione had been very strict in their training to fight Voldermort, trying to make sure all their friends survived their battles against the Deatheaters.

He noticed the pretty blond woman with unusual ears first followed by five people wearing some type of uniforms that were mostly white though each person also had an individual color to help identify them added along their shoulders as well as their helmets: pink, red, orange, blue and green.

"He'll be out for hours," said the blond woman, referring to Faust.

"Um, thanks," Ron managed to say as he cast magic binders on Faust, hoping they would work on binding his type of magic.

"I'm Kes." She held out her hand.

Ron quickly put his wand in his left hand and then shook hers. "Oh, hey, aren't you one of the main team that was sent ahead of everyone else?"

She smiled and nodded. "Yes, but I kind of got sidetracked from the others. Do you know where they are?" She looked at him hopefully since he seemed to know who she was.

"Uh, down in the tunnels, fighting the Borg Queen in her lair." He paused, seeing Zoom stunned on top of Cheetara, realizing Faust must have taken out the speedster first before going after him and Jesse. Checking to see that he was unharmed, Ron sent a '_Ennervate_' spell to wake Zoom.

"Wh-what happened?" He quickly jerked away when he realized his position with Cheetara.

Ron managed a laugh. "You were stunned is all. Jesse and I got jumped from behind but we're fine."

"Speak…for yourself," came Jesse's moan as he slowly crawled out of the hole Solomon Grundy had been pounding him into. He looked with reservations at the still confounded villain.

Kes started walking toward one of the tunnels. "Look after my friends. We're all the same side, and they have an injured membered."

Ron saw that the big man with the orange helmet, Tsuyoshi 'Hunk' Garett, was holding up the fellow with the blue helmet, Lance Charles McClain. Meanwhile, the other three, the young Darrell 'Pidge' Stoker, Princess Allura and Commander Keith Akira Kogane all had their laser pistols out. Behind them could be seen the unconscious forms of Major Disaster, Matter Master and Two-Face, attesting to their skill with those weapons.

"I have some friends working on wounded people right over there. They might be able to help your friend."

Garett grunted his thanks as he walked past carrying McClain along with his arm strapped over his shoulder. Kogane, Allura and Stoker took positions where they could guard while also take safe shots against the villains nearby. Commander Kogane fired the first shot, stunning the shark-like Remora before he could administer a lethal blow. Ron was instantly impressed with the range and accuracy of the laser pistols, making shots he didn't dare do with his wand. Allura took the next shot, hitting Vandal Savage just as the immortal caveman was about to strike the Mighty Mightor from behind. They had to take cover when they were fired upon by Pirahnor, a fish-like alien

Following behind the Voltron team had come a dejected looking creature a little over a foot tall who had been originally overlooked by Ron. White hair stood out from being's eyebrows as well as what appeared to be his mustache; his skin a tannish-grey leathery texture. And between his eyes, Ron could see two tiny nostrils.

"You there, I've misplace a green ring, most likely stolen while I was unconscious. Have you seen it anywhere around here?"

Ron regarded Dominar Rygel XVI, thinking over the limited information Professor X had put in his head about the alien, as well as the warning about the power ring that the Hynerian had briefly had control over. "Sorry, mate. Some bloke named Skeletor got hold of it."

The little figure seemed to stand up straight in outrage, possibly raising himself an extra two inches off the ground. "Where can I find this Skeletor cretin?"

Ron glanced over at the far end of the valley. "Hate to tell you," he said, and pointed with his want, "but I think he's over in that dir-"

A flash of red coated the far end of the valley. Ron and Rygel blinked for a moment before noting that several people over there, especially where the villains had been concentrated, were enveloped in a red aura that appeared to keep them from moving, the motionless towering form of Validus being the clearest example.

Rygel gapped. "Did you just do that with your stick?" considering the possibilities of owning such a potent weapon.

"My wand is not a stick…well, it is, but it's much more than that. And no, whatever happened over there wasn't me."

Rygel climbed a small boulder to get a slightly better view of the valley. "Of course not. No one could freeze all those people with just a stick. But perhaps someone over there has a red ring, a sister ring to the green one that I wore so briefly. Now that would be powerful enough. Yes, powerful enough indeed."

_Everyone_, came Professor X's telepathic call. _We have just encountered the…being that owns this land. He has frozen many of our enemies in time for now. I don't have any more information than that right now. I advise our enemies to surrender now so that the threat that the Borg present can be dealt with sooner than later, with less blood spilt by all. I will contact you later when I have more information to share._

"I think I see the one you call Skeletor!" Rygel said excitedly, pointing toward part of the group coated in red light. He hopped down off the rock, and started to sprint to the other side of the valley, right toward the ongoing fight between the Mighty Mightor and Ibac.

"_Accio Rygel_."

The former Hynerian ruler squawked as he suddenly flew backwards through the air only to be caught by Ron.

"Do not manhandle me! Put me down at once! I have my destiny to fulfill as well as an empire to reclaim!"

"Sorry," Ron said as he put Rygel down. Then he pointed his wand at the small alien and said, "_Stupefy_."

Ron picked up the unconscious Hynerian to carry to a safer area. "Like I said, sorry, but Professor X let everyone know how that ring you want was driving you power mad in the literal sense. Even I can sense that it has some kind of hold on you," he commented, thinking about his sister Ginny and the horcrux diary that had manipulated and even possessed her to make her open the Chamber of Secrets at Hogwarts.

He took a look back at all the still figures coated in red light and wondered if this was a sign that soon this would all be over.

**In Order of Appearance:**

Quark – from the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Admiral Paris – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager

Morn – from the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Tom Paris – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager

Q – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation

Q2 – my own made up character

Capt. Jean-Luc Picard – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation

Capt. James T. Kirk – from the TV series Star Trek: The Original Series

Admiral Leonard 'Bones' McCoy – from the TV series Star Trek: The Original Series  
Ambassador Spock – from the TV series Star Trek: The Original Series

Ro Laren – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation

General Martok – from the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Kes – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager

Capt. Katheryn Janeway – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager

Mirror Universe Capt. James T. Kirk – from the TV series Star Trek: The Original Series

Khan Noonien Singh – from the TV series Star Trek: The Original Series

Lore – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation

Data – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation

Sela – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation

Tasha Yar – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation

Gul Dukat – from the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Founder, female Changeling – from the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Seska – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager

Alpha Hirogen – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager

Intergalactic bounty hunters – from the movie Empire Strikes Back

Xenomorphs – from the movie Alien

4th regeneration Doctor – from the TV series Doctor Who

Master – from the TV series Doctor Who

Professor / the 7th regeneration Doctor from the TV series Doctor Who

Jake Foley – from the TV series Jake 2.0

Borg Queen – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager

Megatron – from the cartoon Transformers

The Other – from the TV series Doctor Who

Guinan – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation

Neville Longbottom – from the book series Harry Potter

Luna Lovegood – from the book series Harry Potter

Dr. Double X – from DC Comics

Floronic Man – from DC Comics

Wolverine – from the movie X-Men

Thundarr – from the cartoon Thundarr the Barbarian

Coach Boomer – from the movie Sky High

Faith – from the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Bebop – from the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Rocksteady – from the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Shredder – from the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Vincent Crabbe – from the book series Harry Potter

Gregory Goyle – from the book series Harry Potter

Copperhead – from DC Comics

Buffy Summers – from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

The Sorcerer – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Princess Ariel – from the cartoon Thundarr the Barbarian

Ookla – from the cartoon Thundarr the Barbarian

Feron – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Moltar – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Neo – from the movie Matrix

Trinity – from the movie Matrix

Penguin – from DC Comics

Lion-O – from the cartoon ThunderCats

The Remora – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Panthro – from the cartoon ThunderCats

Nightcrawler – from the movie X-Men 2

The Commander – from the cartoon Space Ghost

The Cougar – from the cartoon Space Ghost

The Wizard – from the cartoon Space Ghost

River Tam – from the TV series Firefly

Space Ghost – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Professor X – from the movie X-Men

Lurker – from the cartoon Space Ghost

One-Eye – from the cartoon Space Ghost

King Kull – from DC Comics (Earth-S)

The Mighty Mightor – from the cartoon Moby Dick And The Mighty Mightor

Ron Weasley – from the book series Harry Potter

Jesse Kilmartin – from the TV series Mutant X

Glasstor – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Shalimar Fox – from the TV series Mutant X

Abe Sapien – from the movie Hellboy

Mina Harker – from the movie The League of Extra-Ordinary Gentlemen

Harmony Kendall – from the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Kanjar Ro – from DC Comics

Van Helsing – from the movie Van Helsing

Capt. Dylan Hunt – from the TV series Andromeda

Beka Valentine – from the TV series Andromeda

Tattooed Man – from DC Comics

Poison Ivy – from DC Comics

Wasp – from Marvel Comics

Shadow Thief – from DC Comics

Charles Gunn – from the TV series Angel

Invisible Woman – from the movie Fantastic Four

Human Torch – from the movie Fantastic Four

Oz – from the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Cybermen – from the TV series Doctor Who

Steel – from the TV series Sapphire And Steel

Volcano Man – from DC Comics

Dyna Girl – from the TV series Electra Woman And Dyna Girl

Signal Man – from DC Comics

Key – from DC Comics

Flash – from DC Comics

Abra Kadabra – from DC Comics

Galen – from the TV series Crusade

Iron Man – from the movie Iron Man

Parasite – from DC Comics

Star Sapphire – from DC Comics

Storm – from the movie X-Men

Owlman – from DC Comics (Earth-3)

Angel – from the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Liz Sherman – from the movie Hellboy

Thorn – from DC Comics

Allan Quatermain – from the movie The League Of Extra-Ordinary Gentlemen

Dr. Polaris – DC Comics

Death – from the book series Discworld

Mist – from DC Comics (Earth-2)

Gomez Addams – from the TV series The Addams Family

Herman Munster – from the TV series The Munsters

Uncle Fester – from the TV series The Addams Family

Cousin Itt – from the TV series The Addams Family

Rincewind – from the book series Discworld

Carl the Gnome – from the TV series Special Unit 2

Lurch – from the TV series The Addams Family

Zoom – from the movie Zoom

Johnny Quick – from DC Comics (Earth-3)

Catwoman – from DC Comics

Cheetara – from the cartoon ThunderCats

Ibac – from DC Comics (Earth-S)

Cheetah – from the cartoon Challenge Of The Super-Friends

Solomon Grundy – from the cartoon Challenge of the Super-Friends

Felix Faust – from DC Comics

Harry Potter – from the book series Harry Potter

Hermione Granger – from the book series Harry Potter

Lord Voldermort – from the book series Harry Potter

Tsuyoshi 'Hunk' Garett – from the cartoon Voltron

Lance Charles McClain – from the cartoon Voltron

Darrell 'Pidge' Stoker – from the cartoon Voltron

Princess Allura – from the cartoon Voltron

Commander Keith Akira Kogane – from the cartoon Voltron

Major Disaster – from DC Comics

Matter Master – from DC Comics

Two-Face – from DC Comics

Pirahnor – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Dominar Rygel XVI – from the TV series Farscape

Power Ring – DC Comics (Earth-3)

Skeletor – from the cartoon He-man And The Master Of The Universe

Validus – from DC Comics


	46. Chapter 46

**A Tangled Web Part 8**

**Chapter 46**

**The Borg Queen's personal cavern (**_**or cubical**_**)**

"This is what you've been up to well I've been defending you?"

The Borg Queen frowned. Usually if someone was raising their voice in her presence they were crying out for mercy or to be let go, or just screaming hysterically before she indoctrinated them into one of her drones. No one had dared angrily yell at her in several decades. Besides, she had a battle to direct right on her doorstep. And then there was some interfering issue with the Collective that she couldn't quite put her finger on. "Brainiac, I think you may be overworking the emotion chip I gave you and arriving at wrong equations."

The android frowned, though internally lowered the influence of his emotion chip. Taking a few nano-seconds to compose himself, the green-skinned android considered the situation. He had purposely gone out to confront the rogue Luthor drone that had taken the name Brainiac. Despite having more drones than Luthor, Luthor's other allies proved to be an overwhelming force, beating him back into the Sleestak tunnels. He had been setting up defenses even as those deemed to stop them blasted their way in to the Borg-like processing plant. Having sent the order for every drone to fight regardless of how complete they were, Brainiac had hurried into the neighboring smaller cavern that had been set up specifically for the Borg Queen.

Here in her own chambers, she performed her own drone conversions, often choosing to perform experimental drones, such as she did with the Power Rangers, enabling them to still use their swords. She especially liked converting new species, as they offered a novelty and sometimes a bit of a challenge. She partially loved grafting the large casing of the robot Mr. Atom to the giant body of Giganta. It had been even more challenging to merge the unstable body of the Taelon Zo'or to the right half of the large gorilla robot called FLUFFI. Her drones had collected one of the super strong, blue plastic androids of Garguax with which she had attached the left half to a Sleestak drone. She was amazed that within the confines of this small mircoverse that she kept coming across such wonderful challenges for her.

For her latest experiments, she had taken the sentient robot Cyclo and basically cut him in half. The left half of his body was grafted onto right half of the brigand Zorket; meanwhile the right half of Cyclo's body was attached to the left half of the space hi-jacker known as Tansut. Both bodies responded well to her control, and the nano-probes took away any chance of their bodies rejecting the cybernetic attachments. And while nowhere near as versatile as her regular drones, these experimental drones were useful in testing new equipment in the field.

She already set plans in motion to eventually have a small drone strike force in each cube ship, for more force and to add an element of unpredictability that their opponents won't be expecting. One of the easier aspects would be adding components like those found in the members of the Bionic Six: augmenting strength, being able to project illusions, firing optic and sonic beams, and manipulate magnetic forces for attraction and repulsion. What appeared harder was making more of the swords used by the Power Rangers. But that problem would have to wait.

"Brainiac, don't be rude. This is Cubus," She nodded in reference to a eight foot tall, metal, cream colored robot, with square block eyes and strangely shaped like a fictional Earth character named Gumby with similarly bendable arms and legs.

Cubus faced sideways to him and was focused on putting together a complicated device with the help of one of their few replicators producing parts. As if finally taking notice of Brainiac, Cubus bent it's frame towards him. "I am Cubus. I serve the premises of bringing all the illogical minds of the universe together under the logical control of one computer." Then turned back to it's work after pulling another part out of the replicator.

"Cubus has been trying to do the same thing in it's own universe that the Borg has been doing. Only his process involves sending out a signal that controls organic sentient life forms."

The green Coluian android frowned as the Tansut/Cyclo composite, the Zorket/Cyclo composite, and the Creature King and Zeron drones marched past to aid in defending the Borg Queen against the attackers in the outer chamber. Against the far wall stood the Lex Luthor he used to be teammates with in the Legion of Doom, as well as his doppelganger from another universe, Alexei Luthor. Both had webs of nano-probes displayed under their now grayish skin, controlling them now and forever, for which his emotion chip caused him to feel somewhat bad about as Lex Luthor was the closest thing he had ever had as a friend. He quickly shook that feeling off, reminding himself that now Lex would always be with him through the Collective network. As would the Borg Queen and all her knowledge and resources. And together they would take over the multiverse. Or at least a good-sized portion of it. And unravel a myriad of its secrets.

Across the wall from Cubus stood the android Lore and the nano-probe covered Jake Foley. She, Brainiac's new life mate, had given the two to him to try his own hand at amalgamating them together, a challenge he looked forward to. But that didn't explain the smug look on Lore's face.

"What are you so cheery about?" Brainiac snarled. He paused for a nano-second and considered dialing down the emotion chip for a while. But then decided that he would get a handle on the emotions now. After all, if a biological could do it, then he should master them shortly. He was superior after all.

"Nothing really; I just want to see how this plays out, the whole love triangle thing," Lore responded, snidely. "Personally, I think there is trouble in paradise."

He knew Lore was trying to distract him with his quips. He'd seen verbal retorts often deployed when he and his former teammates would face their super hero opponents as a means of undermining their confidence and/or as a distraction as a means of tipping the battle their way. He just had to determine Lore's purpose for antagonizing him when it would most obviously prove to his detriment with the mood the Coluian android was displaying.

Brainiac considered the view Lore had and suspected that his smugness had to do with the machine Cubus was quickly putting together. Reaching to his belt had detached one of his handheld scanning devices, and began to use it on Cubus' project.

"Stop!" commanded Cubus, moving to block the scan with his metal body.

But Brainiac's computer brain had already determined the machine's true purpose. Dropping his scanner, Brainiac drew his blaster and fired.

"What are you doing?" demanded the Borg Queen, fury evident on her face.

Before Brainiac could fire on Cubus again, something tackled him from behind, knocking the weapon out of the android's hand. To his surprise Brainiac realized that the Borg Queen had released control of the two Luthors, letting them attack him. He also noted his connection to the Collective had been severed, and thus could not order his attackers to stop.

"Cubus is going…to use that device…to control you!" he managed to relay between the blows he was receiving.

He could feel the control over the two Luthors resume, though they both held him tightly. Not that that worried him as his android strength was still more than a match for two Humans even if they were in the first stages of becoming a drone. But they could still hinder him at a crucial moment.

Regarding him, the Borg Queen bent down to retrieve his discarded scanner. Scanning the info on it led her to grimace before turning her attention to the partially charred and mangled Cubus still leaning protectively over his creation.

"That machine would control all intelligent organic life, and is especially attuned to me!" she accused. "It would have controlled me despite my cybernetic side! And used the Borg as a frequency relay to spread your influence!"

Cubus creaked as it turned to face her. "Your organic half hinders you though you are so close to perfection," it said with a grinding noise. "My machine is based off of Ultima, who I served before it was blown up by Space Ghost, and would turn all intelligent organic life into controlled logical thinking machines."

She stared at him with dawning understanding. "You are against me, the Queen of the Borg, from using emotions. You think it taints me, makes me less viable as a leader."

"It makes you fallible, imperfect," admitted Cubus, sparks flying out from one of his shoulders.

"And it is necessary," she said through clenched teeth, "because even the Borg have to rely on something that bypasses logic. And for that, emotion is needed. But not for the drones, or else chaos would ensue. No, there must be controlled order."

She turned to Jake Foley who had picked up Brainiac's discarded blaster. Foley aimed and fired with the blaster at full strength, destroying Cubus.

"Aw, just when it was getting interesting," complained Lore. "So are you two going to make up or is grounds for divorce? And an even more important question: who gets the kids and the house?"

"Don't make me remove your ability to talk," snarled the Borg Queen.

Wisely, Lore said nothing, but grinned mercilessly.

The Borg Queen had Lex and Alexei Luthor release Brainiac, with orders to return to where they were originally standing. The Borg Queen herself moved to help the green-skinned android stand.

"You disconnected me from the Collective," he said, his tone accusingly.

She had the decency to look embarrassed (though there was no way she could blush). "I thought you were working irrational, that your emotion chip had gotten the better of you."

His glower faltered, even as he adjusted the emotion chip to a lower setting. "You don't trust me."

She knew ego when she saw it, but there was something else to his hurt tone. Something that suggested he cared what she thought. Perhaps the emotion chip was working better than she had originally anticipated. "I would like to point out that if I truly didn't trust you, I would have used our connection through the Collective to take you over. I didn't try to overpower you, but chose to see why your behavior was so erratic while disabling you from the Collective to keep you from doing something reckless with the drones."

Standing next to him, she brushed her hand against his cheek at the same time as opening up his connection to the Collective. "You matter to me, even in the short time we have been together every nano-second brings us closer, uniting us."

"Yes," he agreed, his emotion chip engaging to a higher setting without him even thinking about it.

They came together, kissing deeply, holding each other tight. Lore in the background, wanted to make gagging sounds but found his movements entirely frozen.

The Borg Queen pulled away suddenly in alarm.

"What is it?"

She glanced at him with surprise. "Someone not a drone is in the Collective. I can feel them doing something, moving, searching for something maybe, I'm not sure what. I'll have to go in and root he/she/it out."

Anger crossed his face, followed by an explosion in the large adjoining chamber. "You focus on the trespasser to the Collective, while I face the intruders out here." He had Foley pass him his blaster before getting another kiss, much shorter, from his mate.

"Be careful," she instructed. "Only gather new drone when it's safe. Our survival is paramount to anything else right now. Our numbers are low but they can be increased at a later date after we have one the day here."

Brainiac bore a cocky smile and departed to defend his queen and mate.

**AUTHOR's NOTES**

_Sorry for the short chapter. I hope to finish this story in three more chapters. The next will be the final fight and downfall of the Borg Queen. The second chapter will deal with Q and the Borg back in the Star Trek universe. And then a final chapter dedicated to the wrap up in the Land of the Lost microverse._

_It's been a long series, and I want to end it well. I know I've lost quite a few readers over the years, most probably because of the length, adding too many characters and too great a period of time between postings. Sorry for all that. But it has been a learning experience for me, and I've loved doing it._

_As for now, I'm off to plot out the next chapter. Wish me luck_

_Read and Review please!_

**In Order of Appearance:**

The Borg Queen – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager

Brainiac – from the cartoon Challenge Of The Super-Friends / DC Comics

Lex Luthor / Brainiac – from the TV series Smallville (mentioned only)

Sleestaks – from the TV series Land Of The Lost

Power Rangers – from the TV series Power Rangers

Mr. Atom – from DC Comics (Earth-S)

Giganta – from the cartoon Challenge Of The Super-Friends / DC Comics

Zo'or – from the TV series Earth: Final Conflict

FLUFFI – from the cartoon Bionic Six

Garguax – from DC Comics

Cyclo – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Zorket – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Tansut – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Cubus – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Creature King – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Zeron – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Lex Luthor – from the cartoon Challenge Of The Super-Friends / DC Comics

Alexei Luthor – from DC Comics (Earth-2)

Lore – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation

Jake Foley – from the TV series Jake 2.0

Ultima – from the cartoon Space Ghost


	47. Chapter 47

**A Tangled Web Part 8**

**Chapter 47**

**Large underground cavern**

**Located in the microverse sometimes known as 'The Land of the Lost'**

The invading forces pushed hard against the Borg, some groups managing to slip past the first line of defense, dodging drones as they hurried through the twisted corridors of Borg equipment. Their goal: to kill the Borg Queen as soon as possible.

Tarzan leapt onto his newest prey, a Sleestak drone that had been about to injected his struggling victim, Captain James Kirk, with nano-probes. The ape-raised English Lord twisted the drone to the side and away from his intended quarry, sending them both to the hard rock floor of the cavern. With a savage thrust of his hunting knife, Tarzan nearly severed the reptilian humanoid's neck ending it's enslaved life.

Kirk took in deep breaths of air as he searched the floor of the cavern for his dropped phaser rifle. The cavern was the size of several football fields and yet the Borg had managed to turn most of it into a drone producing factory, converting minerals and found salvage into the items that they needed. The place was practically a labyrinth with all the obstacles that were in the way. Not to mention all the attacking Borg drones.

"Here."

Kirk turned to catch his phaser rifle that had been tossed to him. He looked up at the nearly-naked man, who wore simply a leather loin cloth as he wiped his blade clean of the nanite-infested blood. It wasn't often that Kirk met someone that he felt intimidated by, but this nearly nude savage was definitely one of them. Kirk usually had own shirt torn of in battles, something he actually encouraged to turn on the ladies, but this man had him beat by far. Kirk's normal method of dealing with these types of individuals was to eliminate them as soon as possible. But that was back in his universe, which he had heard some of the others refer to as the Mirror Universe since the people were the opposite of those that they knew in their universe. Here and now they needed all the fighters they could get; and '_friendly fire_' was an option of last resort.

He nodded to the nearly decapitated Sleestak. "Reminds me of a Gorn head I had mounted in my trophy room."

"I do not kill for trophies," growled Tarzan.

"Your loss," muttered Kirk, eyeing the muscular man, and knew he did not want to get into a physical altercation with him.

Suddenly Tarzan leapt to the side as a metal disc sliced through the table covered with miscellaneous drone tubes as it flew past.

"Ah hell, I remember that." Kirk peeked around a large stalagmite in the direction that the Smart Disc had come from, and sure enough he was right. A young Yautja hunter stood there with obvious signs of nano-probes all over his skin. The Yautja that had attacked Kirk's group on arrival had their bodies cloaked to appear invisible to the naked eye somehow so the only thing he really recognized was the muscular arm that was similar to the one the android Lore had blasted off one of their attackers. Kirk had seen quite a variety of aliens in his time, killed quite a few, too, but the size of this one, the tubular hair, the remaining beady eye, and the mandibles of its mouth… there was only one thing he could say.

"You are one ugly, m-"

Kirk barely ducked for new shelter as the Yautja's shoulder plasma cannon obliterated the stalagmite causing a few small stalactites and boulders to rain down on them the cavern ceiling. Covering his nose and mouth to keep the worst of the dust away, Kirk began firing into the rock dust at where he had last saw the drone. He had been diving to safety when a plasma mass ejected from the slowly settling dust cloud came so close that welts appeared almost instantly on the skin of his shoulder and left a large part of the exposed skin on that side of his body feeling like it was about to develop a bad sun burn. He was crawling through the debris to get a new location to take another shot when a savage yell was made over the din going on all over.

Risking a look, Kirk saw Tarzan on the back of the Yautja drone trying to put his knife in its throat. He realized instantly that he had the safest shot he was going to get; so what if it possibly kills the savage with the knife as well. _This was war after all_, he thought with a smirk. _And technically he's fighting for the other team._

Before he could fire, something hit him in the head from behind, making him drop to his knees. Dazed and seeing stars, Kirk looked up to see a Human female drone aiming her cyborg prosthetic arm toward the battling Tarzan and Yautja drone were.

"Recalibrating," she murmured, then fired an energy beam.

It was to his great surprise as well as a few others when it was revealed that the Yautja drone had been the target, taking the hit at the shoulder close to the neck.

Tarzan rolled away and was on his feet in an instant, prepared to charge her. But stopped when he saw her holding her hands up in surrender.

"I've recently been freed from the Borg collective mind; don't ask me how because I don't know. It was as if I were just suddenly…ejected."

"It's a trick!" growled Kirk, wishing he could see where his phaser rifle had fallen.

"I believe she is telling the truth," Tarzan said. Glancing around to see that there was no immediate threat to them, the jungle lord stood and came forward. "She had both of us at her mercy, and chose to free us instead."

He held out his hand to her remaining good hand. "Tarzan."

She took his hand though it was not in the manner she was used to. "Xena." The jungle lord recognized her as one of those collected in the TARDIS by the Doctor, but they had not interacted.

"What? Are we all best buds now?" Kirk snarked as he fished his rifle out from under one of the supply tables. "Are we killing her or not?"

They ignored him so he fired a few rounds into the Yautja corpse to let off some aggression.

"Are there any others like you?" Tarzan asked as he considered this new development, while keeping an eye on Kirk.

Xena deliberated that for a moment, before sending out a tentative pulse out to see how many drones were no longer receiving transmissions from Collective. "Four, no, five now in this cavern. Three more outside."

"Can you speak with them?"

She didn't like the idea of linking her mind with someone else's mind; no, she wanted to have her body rid of the Borg implements and cleansed. She knew through her retained knowledge that her body could be mostly restored, and that bit of information was all that was keeping her from going insane. She also knew that communication was key to any battle, and only by winning did she have any chance of being restored. "I'm attempting communication now."

Tarzan stood next to her to deter anyone else from shooting her as she would be a tempting target for anyone just coming on them. He soon waved a Colonial Warrior and armed augmented Gorilla past them while he stayed to sort things out with Xena. It had been strange but interesting meeting the augmented Gorillas, Orangutans and Chimpanzees while traveling in the TARDIS. It was strange hearing apes talk in the language of men, but he had at least some experience with that from meeting the savage apes of the lost city of Opar. But to see intelligent simians preparing for battle with machine guns and rifles, he found to be unsettling. He did find it interesting that these intelligent simians came from a futuristic world where Apes had overthrown Humans. The group that came with them in the TARDIS was part of a secret colony called New Eden that had Gorillas, Orangutans and Chimpanzee living peacefully with Humans, working and sharing side by side. Part of him rebelled at the thought of Apes trying to live as Humans in houses- tilling the earth to plant foot, shearing sheep for wool, shaping clay into pots and cups, painting portraits, writing history and poetry, selling crafted items at market. The call of the jungle in his own heart didn't know what to make of that and just accepted it as what was, but did wonder what his mate, Jane, would have thought of it.

An overbearing moaning howl could be heard from one of the sides of the cavern even as it echoed off the rock walls. Those individuals not actively fighting the Borg at the moment lifted their heads in wonder, trying to discern the meaning behind it.

"What on the bloody plains of Mars was that?" Kirk whispered, peeking around some of the Borg equipment after having taken a few sniper shots with only one hit.

Xena tilted her head up as she had the answer. "His name is Ludo. A large, hairy humanoid creature with a child-like demeanor. His mind was released from the Collective a few moments ago. That was his cry you heard; he has the ability to call to rocks and he's using them to barricade himself away from the fighting in a small alcove."

"He can't be very formidable if he's gone into hiding," began Kirk, but then stopped as several large boulders rolled past him toward one of the sides of the cavern.

"He's frightened," Xena reinforced, giving the malicious Kirk a look that told him he was very close to being vaporized.

"Was there any response from the others?" asked Tarzan. He'd found a laser rifle next to a fallen Visitor alien. While he preferred to fight with his knife, he understood the necessity of using long distance weapons, the first that he had mastered being the bow and arrow, and later various rifles though he did not like them. The laser rifle was simplicity to use.

"Two Sleestaks were freed. They wish to fight on their own instead of joining us, but will keep the lines of communication between us open for now." Her head twitched slightly as she received some other news. "Ah, they're working together to free another Sleestak drone from the Collective. They're injecting their own nano-probes to block the Borg signal in the drone."

"They can do that?" Kirk asked with surprise.

"The better question is can you do that?" Tarzan said pointedly.

Xena nodded. "It will take me a few minutes to adjust my nano-probes. The two Sleestak had been working on that idea for a while before I contacted them. And they don't want to share how they instructed their nano-probes in case the Borg listen in on our communication."

"Who are the other two freed drones?"

The warrior princess seemed to listen to something only she could hear. "One is a very belligerent man named Lord Bowler. He's from what you would call the west side of North America from the late 1800's." Her head turned a little to look of in the distance and frowned. "The other is detestable goblin called Blix, an obscene creature I may have to destroy just to get the feel of it from out of my head," she finished, her lips pulling back into a snarl.

"Will they help us?"

"Lord Bowler is willing, but we would have to meet him before anyone else does, or they might try to kill him. As for Blix," she shook her head in disgust, "Blix requests a bribe."

Kirk chuckled in understanding. It was the exact same thing he would be asking for if he was in this Blix's place. "What's he want?" he asked while shooting down a drone that appeared nearby that looked somewhat like a small Tellarite with it's pig-like features only uglier.

"The Power Ranger swords, a phalanx of drones to keep under his authority, a green power ring that the Borg Queen was very interested in, and the safe recovery of two of his companions, two goblins named Pox and Blunder, who are also drones. Not that he's getting any of that."

"Of course not," agreed Kirk as he adjusted the energy frequency of his weapon. "He's just negotiating. He'll probably agree to the swords and twenty drones, and we'll see what we can do about recovering his friends."

"He's not getting any. And especially not Pox since you just killed him." Xena indicated the small drone Kirk had just killed.

Kirk laughed and gave a shrug. "Oh well, we just won't tell Blix about Pox."

"There will be no deal," Tarzan said with an authoritative finality that would have made his English ancestors proud. "He fights to remain free with nothing to show but his own efforts. Same as everyone else."

"Agreed," nodded Xena, already conveying the message to Blix.

Kirk shook his head. "You two really don't know anything about how to cut deals in tight situations."

Before they could say anything more three struggling forms knocked over a wall of cabinets onto Kirk, pinning the lower half of his body. Laying on his back, Kirk managed to bring his weapon up to fire on those struggling onto of the cabinet that painfully immobilized him.

Xena reacted faster, raising her cybernetic prosthetic arm and fired a stun beam at Kirk rendering him inert. As Tarzan moved to the struggling forms, Xena called out, "The two women are friends of mine."

Tarzan pulled one of the women, Gabrielle, away, tossing her to the side, then grappled with the drone's prosthetic arm, leaving the other arm to the other Amazon, Eponin.

Gabrielle rolled with the toss and leapt to her feet to face another drone, this one making her heart drop. "Xena," she whispered with horror. She had lost track of her friend hours ago, but had refused to think the worst, as Xena had proved to be quite capable of surviving insurmountable odds.

"It's ok, Gabrielle. I'm free of the Borg influence. I'm fighting against them now."

The Amazon queen looked at her long-time companion, searching to see if this was some kind of trick. "Is it.. is it really you?"

Xena managed a grin and nodded.

"What… look what they did to you!"

"Most of that can be fixed later, but right now we need to help subdue this drone."

Xena walked past her, Gabrielle soon turned to follow.

Tarzan looked up from where he struggled to hold the drone in a Nelson wrestling hold from behind. "He's a friend," Tarzan called out. "He's Kato."

Xena simply extended the tubules in her good arm and injected the Kato drone with her nanites. "These will immobilize him while I finish designing the nano-probes to free him completely." Reaching down, she yanked out some of the vital components used by the Borg to keep the drones connected.

"Xena!"

The warrior princess turned to her friend only to see Gabrielle staring in shock at Eponin. The powerful Amazon was crouching in pain as grayish tendrils of Borg nanites tore pathways throughout her body.

"Hurts… so much," Eponin shuddered, as she felt herself slipping away to the call of the Borg Collective.

Xena hurried as fast as her Borg implants would allow her before kneeling on the cabinet and injecting Eponin with a similar set of nano-probes just before the Amazon slipped gratefully into unconsciousness. "This should stop the spread of the nanites and keep her from moving. I should be able to reverse what the nanites were doing, but she will have to undergo some cellular regenera-" The warrior princess-turned-drone stopped, realizing that Gabrielle wouldn't know what she was talking about as they came from Ancient Greece. Xena only knew because of the knowledge she retained from being part of the Collective. "Some special healing, but she should make a full recovery. I will make sure of it."

Gabrielle nodded glumly, but with hope. "I saw a few of my sister Amazons fall before the Borg. Can they be saved as well?"

Xena gave her a smile. "With any luck, yes."

The cabinet they were on rocked as Tarzan pulled Kato off and onto the ground next to where Kirk laid. "Though I don't like him," began the ape-man, "perhaps it would be best if you were to get off the cabinet so we can see if he's injured."

Tarzan helped Gabrielle ease Eponin onto the ground while Xena moved to stay out of their way.

Kirk just laid there like a lump. Bruised and battered, but not really any worse for wear.

Buffy ducked the grayish serpentine head that snapped it's fangs at her. She batted it away with her left arm, then had to roll out of the way of a beam of energy that she hoped was only a stun beam. "This is crazy!"

Her opponent had been one of Skeletor's Evil Warriors, a name she found so self-explanatory it was ridiculous. Sssqueeze was a tall snake-like humanoid with the ability to extend his arms to great lengths. To make matters worse, Sssqueeze had the large head of a snake in the place of his right hand with four long claws shooting out the top where the fingers should be. Buffy had speculated that his left hand had also bore a snake head before it had been replaced with a Borg prosthetic. Sadly, the cybernetic limb attached to practically all drones had only been put on the end of Sssqueeze's arm, allowing the prosthetic to reach out further and make more angled shots than other drones. Buffy wasn't liking her adversary one bit; it didn't help that the snake man/cyborg reminded her a lot of Adam.

She flipped out of the way again as the snake hand struck at her again with nanite filled tubules extended from where the claws above the eyes were.

"So wrong," the Slayer muttered with disgust.

Nearby, a large man with large pink and purple patches shown on his skin named Dagger, was dealing with another Evil Warrior turned drone by the name of Clawful. Similar to Sssqueeze, Clawful had had one arm segment removed and replaced with Borg standard equipment. But that is where the similarities ended. Clawful was a hybrid between a man and a crab. His remaining arm ended in a massive claw that was five times the size of a Sleestak claw that they had had to deal with on a lot of the drones. To make matters worse, Clawful looked like the poster child used to warn against extreme steroid use.

Buffy had tried to force Sssqueeze to crash into Clawful, but, unfairly in her opinion, the serpentine drone seemed to have retained a good part of his agility. She grabbed a large metal tray off a nearby counter and used it to swat the snake-headed hand away.

"I hate snakes!" she shouted, more out of venting her frustration than anything else.

She swatted the tray at the elongated prosthetic arm only to have it blasted away, making her hands sting, two fingers bent at wrong angles and a broken nail. "Not good," she said as both hands now turned to her even as the drone's snake-headed body continued to walk towards her.

There was a crack in the air as the end of a whip fastened around the snake-headed hand and pulled it away from the Slayer.

"I hate snakes, too," called out a newly arrived man in a fedora hat and holding onto the other end of the whip.

Henry 'Indiana' Jones didn't know why he agreed to come along to his second big battle against the Borg. Sure he had leapt at the opportunity of going to the Wild West with the Doctor, even if it was just a few decades before he was born. Sure the Doctor had saved him from a death trap of Fu Manchu's, but the encounter with the Borg was worse. He'd even take the Nazis over the Borg.

The only bright spot had been when they exited the battlefield and entered the Sleestak tunnels. He had found several artifacts on the ground while the leaders deliberated what to do next. Gathering all the larger items together, Jones had stashed the relics, including a Sleestak skull with jewels replacing the eyes, in a small alcove where he hoped to retrieve them later when it was safer.

But first he had to survive.

Sssqueeze's cyborg limb lifted slightly before sending out a beam of light that cut the whip in half, thus freeing the snake-headed hand that quickly elongated towards the archeologist / adventurer.

Indiana Jones had briefly been turned into a drone when in the Wild West and had no desire to have a repeat of the experience. Ducking behind a shelving unit, Jones waited for the last second before pushing it over to pin the serpent arm down. At least that's what would have happened if it hadn't pulled back in time.

"Oh boy," Indiana muttered, as he looked up at what he considered a pissed off snake, even with the Borg glazed eyes.

A sudden hum of energy and something bright flashed in front of him. The result being the snake-headed hand being loped off and lying useless on the ground.

Jones sucked in a breath as he realized just how close he had been to being turned into a drone again. Or maybe killed. The Nazis were looking better and better.

"Are you going to stand there staring or are you going to lend a hand?"

Jones turned to find a young man in his late teens wearing something like the robed clothes he'd seen in Japan. But it was what was in his hand that drew his attention. It was a sword – but the blade was had out of light and seemed to hum and crackle with electricity.

"Xander!" shouted Buffy who was still engaging the Sssqueeze drone. "I lost Mr. Pointy around here! And I could really use him like five minutes ago!"

Xander Harris was about to charge forward when he spotted the item in question near his feet. He snatched up the wooden stake and gripped it tightly. When Buffy had been originally recruited by Q, the powerful entity had empowered the stake to do the same thing to drones that it did to vampires – if they are staked through the heart, they turn to ash.

Seeing two new drones approaching, Xander knew he had to act immediately. "Buffy, catch!" Then, using his quasi-Jedi abilities he'd picked up, he tossed Mr. Pointy perfectly to her, then turned to deal with the new arrivals. "Come on," he called to Indiana, and tossing him his last blaster from the Star Wars universe where he'd picked up the lightsaber. "You want to live forever?"

"Crazy kid," Jones muttered, while fumbling with the blaster that fortunately seemed similar to the pistols he was used to.

Meanwhile, Buffy completed her dance with Sssqueeze and final plunged Mr. Pointy into the reptile drone's chest, turning him to dust.

"That's better," sighed the Slayer. Then seeing a Sleestak drone and a female Human drone come around the corner, she let out a frustrated growl. She was tired, dirty, hungry, and her hand hurt. At least she had someone she could take her frustrations out on.

Tony Piccolo announced his arrival by firing several rounds as he ran forward and leapt onto Clawful's back. The humanoid crab drone disregarded Piccolo's attack as he fought with Dagger. Piccolo swore as he tried to hang onto the shell-covered back of his target.

"Hang on, Dagwood! We got him!"

Dagger could only grunt in response as he was doing his best to keep the massive claw from pinching him in half. He'd managed to damage the prosthetic limb and pull out the tubules coming out of the claw, but he knew that it was only a matter of time before the Borg's nanites repaired them.

Dagger was actually an accidentally created composite person – three people turned into one – formed in ancient Greece during one of the Borg invasions.

A manufactured Human named Dagwood, Lt. Timothy O'Neill, and a local Grecian named Joxer were all merged into one being. Piccolo had felt awful about it, blaming himself because he was the one that had insisted that Dagwood and Tim go on the venture. He felt even worse after learning that there was no way to separate the three men back into their original identities. And that they didn't want to either. Dagwood now knew what it was to be smart, O'Neill felt strong and confident, while Joxer finally knew he was the powerful warrior he was always meant to be. Even more, the new personality of Dagger, who they had named themselves, had drawn the romantic interest of Gabrielle, Queen of the Amazons, and companion to Xena. It hurt all the more for Piccolo when he had had to return home alone and explain to everyone that O'Neill and Dagwood would not be coming back.

When the Doctor made come to the Seaquest to request aid for stopping the Borg multiverse invasion once and for all, Piccolo had begged Captain Hudson to agree to it. He was soon reunited with Dagger in the TARDIS, though he kept slipping and calling him Dagwood.

But due to the whole time travel thing while their separation had only been a few weeks for Piccolo, it had actually been a few years since Dagger had seen him, not that he was any less missed.

Piccolo battered the drone's head with the handle of his handgun with no results. "Tough shell to crack," he muttered. With just a little regret, he aimed the gun at the back of the drone's head and fired.

Clawful jerked forward, but the bullet had ricochet off it's head in the process of tearing off a few scales.

"I've heard of hardheaded, but you take the cake." Piccolo was not about to give up. Dagger was about to be slowly cut in half and Tony had to stop it.

In a jarring movement, Piccolo found himself slipping off the Clawful drone's shell and he managed to grab a large tube that protruded out of the shell of his back and went up and into his neck. Holding onto the tube with one hand, Piccolo decided to see just how important that tube was.

Placing his feet against the shell, Piccolo pulled on the tube with all his might, feeling things in the other side of the shell begin to give way as fluids started to leak.

Results were almost immediate as the Clawful drone seemed to convulse even as he threw Dagger away into a nearby stalagmite. Then almost as quickly the drone reached back with his claw and grabbed a hold on to the man barely holding onto his back, and pulled up and over till he was in front of him..

"Got your attention that time, didn't I?" Tony sneered, flicking some of the fluid on his hands into the drone's face, wishing he hadn't dropped his gun because he would have loved to have seen what it would do to this ugly fellow's face.

For a response the drone squeezed it's claw, crushing Tony's left arm and chest.

"Tony!" Dagger charged forward, using a long, thin stalagmite piece as a jousting lance. The stone lance struck the drone in the neck and pushed on till it killed and partially decapitated the Clawful drone.

Dagger pried open the massive claw using all his strength, spilt Borg fluid mixing with blood beneath him. Catching Tony before he could fall, Dagger carefully eased him down. Looking down at the crushed arm and rib cage, he knew there was nothing he could do.

Tony managed to smile between the blood in his mouth but was unable to speak.

"I/We are sorry, Tony," Dagger said with tears in his eyes.

Tony managed to shake his head indicating it wasn't his fault and then was still.

Dagger wept for a few moments before laying Tony all the way on the ground.

A primal cry of rage filled the cavern, and Buffy just managed to get out of the way as Dagger charged past her and tackled the drone Gnawgahyde of the Dreadnoks.

Buffy couldn't even take into account Gnawgahyde being beat to death as she was engrossed in fighting the drone of Mother-1.

Xander has his hands full as he fought the Lennier drone who seemed better adept to Xander's Jedi style of fighting than the other drones, or else the drone had adapted to Xander's fighting style.

Indiana Jones had not done so well with his opponent. The super-villain Icicle drone had flash-frozen him with his ice gun, leaving the adventurous archeologist embedded in a small iceberg. Xander had been fortunate to use his quasi-Jedi abilities to cause a large hanging stalactite to fall from the cavern ceiling and pin the drone under a pile of rocks.

Xander barely deflected a shot from the Minbari drone, then cursed as the ricochet flew back and smash a chuck of the ice block that Jones was stuck inside. "Trickier than I thought," he muttered to himself, before yelping as he battered away another shot, this time aiming it upwards, nearly striking Batman as he fought along the ceiling with the Mosquitor drone.

Using the Force, Xander caused a head-sized rock to fly up and knock the drone's prosthetic arm to the side in order to step closer to cut off the more dangerous limb with his lightsaber. But he hadn't expected the drone's personal shields to suddenly be able to block his Jedi weapon.

"Oh great gobs of-"

His unique complaint was cut off when he had to swerve the tubules jutting out of Lennier's remaining arm; fortunately the tubules did not prove resistant to Xander's lightsaber.

Xander send Lennier flying back into the rock wall with the Force, causing the Minbari smack the large external bone crest on the back of his head hard, sending bone fragments flying.

"Lennier, you don't want to fight me," Xander said, trying to influence him with the Force, one of the Jedi abilities he really didn't have a very good handle on.

"Resistance is futile," answered the drone as he straightened up.

He blocked more energy beam attacks away, happily surprised when one went right back at the Lennier drone but was disappointed as it dispersed benignly the drone's personal force field.

'_Gotta get past that force field of his or he's going to get me one of these times_.'

Realizing that it was either him or Lennier, plus whoever Lennier fought after him, Xander made his choice. He turned off his lightsaber, then knocked the Minbari drone back again with the Force, though he could tell that it was getting harder to touch the drone with the Force anymore as the drone was adapting to that kind of attack.

'_Have to make this count_,' he thought as he rushed forward, hitting both arms back and then thrusting the lightsaber against the drone's chest before reigniting it.

The drone's eyes widened with shock as the energy weapon of the Jedi cut him in half from the inside.

Xander made the final cut quick hoping to spare the trapped consciousness of Lennier any undue pain. "Rest in peace, Lennier, Sorry it turned out this way."

"You're holding your own there pretty good, Xander," commented Buffy as she brushed the dusty remains of Mother-1 off her blouse. Then gritting her teeth, she readjusted her two fingers back into their sockets, causing a few tears.

Xander grunted. "Seems like I should be able to do more."

The vampire slayer let out a knowing sigh. "I feel like that all the time." She glanced back at Dagger who had left Gnawgahyde's crushed form to go back to his friend's corpse. "And sometimes it's never enough."

Xander shook his head. "Lennier was on our side. He came over on the TARDIS with us. And now his blood is on my hands."

She gently placed a hand on his shoulder. "This wasn't your fault, Xander. You didn't turn him into a drone. His actions were not his own. It's very much like if he'd been turned into a vampire. He might look like your friend, but that wasn't him anymore."

Xander nodded. "Yeah, but unlike vampires, these guys are still alive. And a few people have actually come back from being turned into these cyber-zombies."

"Still too many for us to save."

She was right. He knew that. But it was still a bitter pill to accept.

Xander regarded the encapsulated Indiana Jones and chuckled quietly.

A trace of a smile formed on her lips as she saw some of the old Harris come back. "What?"

He pointed to Jones on ice. "I was about to ask if you've seen an industrial sized hairdryer around."

They both managed to laugh.

**AUTHOR's NOTES**

_Alright, looks like I'm going to be a little longer with the fight scenes with the Borg so that means a few more chapters. I just have so many people I want to cover. I hope people noticed the Indiana Jones meets a Jedi thing I was going for. (You know Harrison Ford played Indiana Jones and Han Solo). Plus flash freezing Jones. _

_I didn't want to kill off Tony Piccolo, but in fights like this people on both sides are going to be dying, and not just the people in red Star Trek shirts. So far in A Tangled Wed Part 8 I've managed to kill off over 100 characters (not including Sleestak), and even have a list of them that I call Dead In The Web. Not to be morbid or anything but people die in wars so I'm just being realistic (which is ironic because I'm writing fanfiction, ha!)_

_I've also gone back and done some rewriting, adding a few characters and events. A few of the new characters were Clawful and Sssqueeze._

_Anyway, hope everyone likes it. Please review! It's lonely out here._

**In order of appearance or mention**

Borg Queen – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager (mentioned only)

Tarzan – from the book series Tarzan

Sleestak – from the TV series The Land Of The Lost

Mirror Universe Capt. James T. Kirk – from the TV series Star Trek: The Original Series

Yautja hunter – from the movie Predator

Lore – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation

Xena – from the TV series Xena: Warrior Princess

The 4th Doctor – from the TV series Doctor Who

Jane – from the book series Tarzan (mentioned only)

Ludo – from the movie Labyrinth

Lord Bowler – from the TV series The Adventures Of Brisco County Jr.

Blix – from the movie Legend

Power Rangers – from the TV series Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (mentioned only)

Power Ring – from DC Comics (Earth-3)

Pox – from the movie Legend

Blunder – from the movie Legend

Gabrielle – from the TV series Xena: Warrior Princess

Eponin – from the TV series Xena: Warrior Princess

Kato – from the TV series Green Hornet

Buffy Summers – from the TV series Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Sssqueeze – from the cartoon He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe

Clawful – from the cartoon He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe

Henry 'Indiana' Jones – from the movie Raiders Of The Lost Ark

Fu Manchu – from the book series about Fu Manchu

Xander Harris – from the TV series Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Tony Piccolo - from the TV series Seaquest 2032

Dagwood – from the TV series Seaquest 2032

Lt. Timothy O'Neill – from the TV series Seaquest 2032

Joxer – from the TV series Xena: Warrior Princess

Capt. Oliver Hudson – from the TV series Seaquest 2032 (mentioned only)

Gnawgahyde – from the cartoon G.I. Joe

Mother-1 – from the cartoon Bionic Six

Lennier – from the TV series Babylon 5

Icicle – from DC Comics (Earth-2)

Batman / Terry McGinnis – from the cartoon Batman Beyond

Mosquitor – from the cartoon She-Ra: Princess Of Power


	48. Chapter 48

**A Tangled Web Part 8**

**Chapter 48**

_Now just a quick word. A lot of characters in this chapter will have come from previous parts of the story so I just want to include a quick reference as to where they started in the story._

A TANGLED WEB 2 – The Greatest American Hero

A TANGLED WEB 3 – The A-Team, Xena

A TANGLED WEB 4 – Battlestar Galactica, V – The Series, and an alternate reality for some characters from Stargate-SG1

A TANGLED WEB 5 – Babylon 5, Crusade, an Airwolf character as a Highlander style Immortal, and a lot of police and secret agents

A TANGLED WEB 6 – Gargoyles, Planet of the Apes

A TANGLED WEB 7 – Due South

_I have everyone listed in order of appearance at the end in case you are unsure of anyone._

_NOW ON WITH THE STORY!_

**IN THE UNDERGROUND CAVERNS**

Dr. Juliet Parrish shifted uneasily on her knees as she watched the other physician work. "Careful, the membrane to your left is a venom sac. If you manage to cut it the sac will spray venom all over us, but if you put any pressure on it, then the sac will contract and spray venom from his mouth."

The operating doctor grunted in annoyance. "Miss, I've considered one of the heads of Xenobiological research where I come from and have operated on dozens of alien species, some of which has venomous sacs on various parts of their body. So I believe I have a rather good idea of what I am doing."

"Sorry," Juliet said, knowing what it was like having another physician looking over her shoulder and giving unwanted comments. "It's just that the Visitors' venom can blind you if it gets in the eyes, and burn your skin as well. You don't even want to know what would happen if it gets in your mouth," she added, unable to help herself.

Ignoring her, Dr. Stephen Franklin proceeded to remove the shrapnel from the alien named Philip's neck, while careful to keep it from nicking the obvious venom sac. The fake Human-like skin had been cut away revealing the green scaly reptilian nature of the alien so that he had a better view of the entry wound. Pulling it free, he let the bits of metal fall to the ground before re-checking to make sure he got everything out before closing the wound. Franklin had agreed with Sheridan to come along on this venture to provide medical support. He was rather curious what another reality would be like, taking every addition scanning device he could carry hoping to gather some interesting data. It had been Michael Garibaldi that had convinced him to follow them onto the field, treating the wounded as a medic on the field. Not that he had been able to save Garibaldi. He'd been shot down by a ricochet, killing him instantly. But Franklin was determined to save as many others as he could, even if their prospects of winning seemed bleak.

Behind him, Juliet stood up, carefully with a bandaged wrist. She had injured it in a blast that threw her into a wall where she seriously cut her wrist. Dr. Franklin had managed to put some type of patch over each of the larger cut arteries before she bled out, then slapped a strange bandage over that. The instructions he had given her was to not bend her wrist or squeeze her hand for the next week, if she lived that long. Personally, she wanted to study the artery patches he had used, but she would have to wait until she got back to her lab before she could do any self exploration. Juliet had tried shooting with her other hand, but had almost hit a Minbari Ranger that was on their side. Philip had wisely suggested that she not fire any weapons for now, and that was right before he had been injured.

Seeing that Philip, a good friend of hers, was no longer critical, Juliet decided to check on the others that had been piled up in this small side cavern. She knew that a large part of her frustration was from seeing Mike Donovan, her on-again, off-again lover, vanish in a burst of energy. She didn't know if had been vaporized, teleported, or what. She had asked Elizabeth about it, hoping her mysterious powers could tell her something, but all she could say was that she didn't think he was dead and that they would most likely see him again. She just hoped it wasn't as a Borg drone.

Fighting the Borg on their own turf had proven to be very costly. There were about fifty of them piled in the chamber, most were injured, and a few dead, but they could not go on. They had to hope the others still out there would still be able to take out the Borg Queen before the drones found their way here. Otherwise, this chamber might become their tomb. Or worse, they would become drones.

But there was still a chance. Fighting in the Resistance against Diana and the Visitors, she had managed to survive quite a few tight situations proving it was possible. It was the staying alive that was the tricky part. She looked across the way to see Willie and Thelma, a Visitor couple, keeping vigil over Elizabeth Maxwell, the starchild, a hybrid between Visitor and Human, and was now the leader of the Visitors. She worked to maintain peace between the two people as well as the new Colonists that had arrived with the Battlestar Galactica. Ironically it helped that they all had a common enemy in the Cylons that had been trailing the Colonists as they searched to find their long lost cousins on Earth.

At nudge from Thelma, Willie stepped around the unconscious form of Constable Benton Fraser whose canine companion Diefenbaker looked up at him with a heartbreaking whine.

"Good toy, stay there with your Human and be a good hog."

Juliet managed a bit of a smile at Willie's vernacular slip. "It's a '_good boy_' and '_be a good dog_', which he can't do."

A familiar puzzled look crossed her friend's face. "Why not?" he asked looking back at the canine whose head was resting on Fraser's chest.

"Because he's a wolf, not a dog." She let a sigh as Willie nodded in understanding, glancing back at Diefenbaker, to see if he could detect the difference.

"How is Elizabeth?"

"She is in a…ah, how do you say…, a healing comb?"

"Healing '_coma_'." She frowned. What few medical tools she had brought with her had either been used up or scattered in one of their mad dashes for cover. Fortunately Willie knew a smattering of Visitor first aid, some of which had proven very useful when helping Elizabeth's mother through pregnancy and childbirth. "Any idea when she will wake up?"

The Visitor glanced back to his fallen charge before turning back to her. "I am not really sure."

She nodded, hoping it was in a supportive manner before letting him to return to Thelma. Juliet moved on, taking a look at everyone, to make sure their basic needs were being met. She offered Dana Scully, a FBI agent who had a medical degree, a nod in passing. They had talked briefly and Juliet had been surprised to learn that Dana's reality had a very different alien situation to deal with.

It was with some alarm that she noticed movement over by the far wall where they had put their dead. "Please don't tell me we put someone alive over there," she whispered to herself, horrified at the very thought. She sidestepped around an injured Gorilla who was taught by one of the Colonists how to use one of their blasters. She quietly made her way around a young man named Boxey weeping over the body of his father, Apollo.

In the back, between a the dead bodies of a Visitor and an Amazon, was an older, white-haired man who had had a two-inch hole burned through his chest, just missing his heart but nailing his liver. The man, Dominic Santini, had held on for a few moments, even managed to behead one of the drones somehow, before collapsing to floor in his death. And she was sure he had died; she had been the one to examine him.

Looking down at him, she watched as he stretched and rubbed his eyes as if from waking from a long nap. "Oh hello."

"Hello?" she said, as she tried to keep from going into shock. "You-you were dead. I saw you die. I examined the wound. How are you not dead?"

He grinned sheepishly. "Would you believe me if I said I was only mostly dead?"

She gapped at him. Then lunged forward and pulled open his ripped and bloody shirt. Underneath was dried blood, pink skin and lots of gray hair. "Where…where's the wound? You had a hole burned all the way through you." Wide-eyed, she looked up at him. "How?"

Embarrassed, Santini sat up with a low groan, wondering how his mentor, Duncan MacLeod, would have handled this situation. "Yeah, I can still feel some of it, too. Probably be five or ten more minutes before I'm completely perfect again."

"Are you Human?"

He was scratching where the front of the wound had been, and a small spark of electricity skipped across that section of skin. "Must have just healed over before you opened up my shirt." He gave her a smile. "As for whether or not I'm Human, that is a question of much debate even among others like me. Personally, I think so. Whether I am right or not doesn't really matter; Earth is the only planet I've known and it's my home."

Her thoughts tumbled around in her head, trying to make sense of it all. "Can you…" She gestured to the corpses lying around him.

"Uh, sorry, sweetie. That's beyond even my abilities. Trust me, I wish it wasn't."

She sighed, sadly, understanding.

"Hold the flashlight steady."

Dana Scully carefully wiped out the last of the rock shards from the woman's side. She had already bandaged the woman's arm. She had long ago run out of bullets and the energy weapon that had been provided for her had also run out of juice, so she had applied herself to patching up everyone she could. Those sequestered in the small side-cavern were experiencing a lull in the fighting; the only problems being the exhaustion, fear and injuries. The adrenaline was wearing off and reality was settling in. It didn't look pretty. Dana had noticed what was happening so started to use her medical training to keep herself busy and provide a distraction and maybe even a little hope for the others.

Getting to her current patient's wounds wasn't really a problem as she wore, in Dana's opinion, a scantily clad leather outfit made for a more tropic environment, yet to Ephiny, the patient, she found it perfect attire for an Amazon regent.

"So how is she, doc?" asked the slightly balding, middle-aged man that Ephiny was leaning her back against.

"Should be fine. I'm going to pad the wound and place a bandage over the wound. When we get out of here, I or someone else should take another look at the injury, check for more bits of rock and clean it, before stitching it closed. It needs to be done by someone within the next ten hours."

Murdock smiled gratefully and kissed the back of his wife's head. They had met when Q had brought the A-Team to another reality in Ancient Greece to fight the Borg. Ephiny admired how well he handled all the scared and displaced children as well as his fearlessness when facing the enemy. Captain 'Howling Mad' Murdock still couldn't believe his good fortune at landing such a remarkable woman. Or more like that she landed him, quirks and all. There was no way he was letting anyone harm her. He'd defend her to his last breath. Even if he did have a broken leg.

Dana looked back at her little assistant who had been holding the flashlight. "Bandages, please, por favor."

The young Hispanic girl looked through her backpack before handing over the requested item. "Here, Dana."

"Gracias," Dana responded. A quick glance back told her the little girl of around 8 or 9 was watching her every move with wide eyes. She was hoping to keep the girl's attention diverted from the other dangers around them, as well as the bodies piled up in the far corner.

Seeking to distract the girl, as well as getting some answers for herself, Dana asked, "Dora, how did you end up down here in these tunnels?"

Dora clutched her monkey companion tightly to her chest. "Boots and I lost our map. Map had blown into a cave so we went to rescue it."

The FBI agent frowned. The Doctor had explained to that for some reason a large number of people and animals were transferring over to this land due to something that the Borg had done. "Weren't you afraid?"

"No, Boots and I go on lots of adventures," she said, referring to her monkey. "Lots of time we have get past sneaky snakes, or get past the grumpy old troll, and we always have to watch out for Swiper."

Dana tried not to grin at the imagination of the little girl, but she had to wonder about parents that let their child go out and about with a first aid kit in her backpack. "If getting your map was so important, why didn't you get help? Where were your parents?"

"Mi mami and papi work, so Boots and I have lots of time to explore."

Dana nodded to herself realizing that Dora was a latchkey kid- one of many children in homes with two working parents and no one to look out for them. "Scissors, por favor."

The little girl rummaged through her backpack again before pulling out the requested item. "Here."

"Ok, snip here. Let me wrap here, and snip again."

"You're good at this," Dora said, sounding amazed.

"You aren't so bad yourself, and you kept a cool head, too," Murdock added. "Maybe you have a future in the medical field."

Dora blushed at the compliment. "I'm not sure what I want to be when I grow up, but thank you."

Dana took a moment to examine an older wound across Ephiny's bare midriff. "What caused this? It looks like an unusually long cesarean scar."

"That's what it is," admit Ephiny.

Dana's eyes widened. "Did you give birth to a giant?"

"No, a centaur."

Dana felt as if her mind flipped. She tried to see if the woman was joking. The agent hoped she was. But Ephiny came from Ancient Greece, and brought with her a tribe of Amazons. But a centaur?! The physiological variances alone. She wanted to ask a lot of very personal questions, but the possibility of an attack at any moment, and asking something potentially embarrassing in front of the child.

"What's a centaur?" asked Dora, making Dana's voice catch in her throat.

"My son Xenos is a centaur; that means he's a regular person from head to waist, but from then on he has the body of a horse."

"A horse? That sounds amazing!" said the excited little girl. "How did he come to be born that way?"

"Well, he takes after his father, who was also a centaur."

Dana baulked. "But-but how…I mean-" She looked from Ephiny to Dora, trying to phrase the questions multiplying in her mind, without saying that would be inappropriate.

"Xenos is a very special child; he's considered a living treaty between the Amazons and the Centaurs." She sighed before adding, "Xenos' father died just before he was born; he died protecting us." She sighed. "I never thought I'd find love again." She smiled, looking back at Murdock behind her as he gently rubbed her shoulders.

"You do know you are pregnant again?" Dana asked, deciding to change the subject, hoping it was a better one.

The Amazon Regent nodded, amused at Murdock's shocked look. "I thought I might be; I just thought I'd wait a few days to confirm it though."

"I'm going to be a father? I know we've always talked about it, but, wow! I can't wait to tell B.A. that he's going to be a godfather!"

Bill Maxwell, a recently retired FBI agent, bit into the crunchy treat as he studies the man and woman as they tried to work on a very different, very unique, and if he had been awake, a very difficult patient.

It was very unique due to the fact of what you could not notice, which happen to be the patient himself. In fact no one would have known there was a problem except someone had tripped over him. The reason for this was evident, or not so evident, due to the man being entirely invisible.

Fortunately, they had also noticed the severe dampness on the left arm caused by blood loss. Bill had used his tie for a tourniquet.

Bill watched while chewing one of his treats. "Now I want that tie back when he's through with it."

The woman, Dr. Sarah Chambers, looked at him with surprise. "Are you joking? It's worn and covered with stains, some of which are blood."

Bill snorted. "It was a gift from my last partner. I've got a lot of history with that tie. Some of the bloodstains are even mine. Besides, I plan to be buried with it," he answered, tossing another treat in his mouth.

Sarah was about to say something, but stopped when she noticed Bill was eating something. "Say, you have any more of that; I'm starving."

"If you're sure," he said, handing her a treat.

She looked at it curiously while her stomach let out an embarrassing growl. Sarah realized that she was about two and a half centuries ahead of Bill, but she had never seen anything like the dry bite-sized morsel that had been given to her. She took a tentative bite off a corner. "It's a weird texture; is it a granola of some kind?"

He chortled. "Nope, that there is an All-American Doggie Treat."

She spat out the bits in her mouth. "You gave me…" She stopped as she watched him toss another of the doggie treats in his mouth. "Why are you eating dog food?"

"Habit I picked up a long time ago. Got locked in a shed for a few days, there was a half bag full of dog treats." He regarded one of them as he made it dance through his fingers. "I'd have died if hadn't had them. Once I was freed a few weeks later, I found I had a hankering for them. Turned out to be a great stakeout snack. And it's much healthier than donuts." Then with a half hazard flip of his thumb, the dog treat flew across the room where Diefenbaker snapped it out of the air, chomping it to bits before laying his head back down on Constable Fraser's chest to resume his mournful watch.

"What did you do for water?"

Bill frowned, remembering that confined space. "You don't want to know the answer to that."

"If you don't mind," spoke Lt. John Matheson, second-in-command of the destroyer starship Excalibur. "I'm trying to read this patient." He had his hands on what they assumed was the invisible person's temples, his eyes closed as if he were focusing. "I'm only a P6 telepath and these are definitely not ideal conditions so please cut the chatter."

Bill was about to reply when Sarah held up a hand to hush him.

"His name is Bobby Hobbes," Matheson said suddenly. "His friend was an invisible man, and they both worked for a secret government agency. His friend, Darien, was infected by the Borg. Bobby killed him before the Borg could take him over. There was a gland…a manmade gland that was how the invisibility was accomplished. Bobby had the gland removed from Darien's body and put in his."

Sarah Chambers knelt down carefully next to Matheson, having stepped on the invisible man's hand once already earlier. "Can you make him visible so I can treat him?" Her instruments were already monitoring Hobbes' vitals and delivering medications to his body, but she still needed to visually see what she was working on to repair the injury.

"It's not that easy," John replied. "This gland was surgically hardwired into his system. It would be difficult for a P10 telepath, for me, I'm not even sure it is possible."

"You're going to have to try anyway," Sarah told her superior officer. "Just like I'm going to have to close this wound '_blind_'." She looked up at Maxwell. "We can't afford anymore distractions…" she began.

"Not to worry," Bill said, hands up in surrender, "I'll find someone else to bother; just keep track of that necktie for me." He tossed another treat to Diefenbaker before turning away.

Near the entrance of the main chamber, Bill checked in with the intrepid guards – all had been wounded, but were able to stay in one place and shot at any approaching drones.

Zack Allen wasn't actually wounded; his prosthetic leg had been severely injured. But from what he told Bill, he wasn't really bothered by it being damaged since it hadn't fit properly in the first place. Now he had the incentive to make sure he received a better fitting one when he got back to his home universe.

"It's weird," Zack commented, after eating one of the offered doggy treats. "You see that man over there?"

Bill looked where Zack had indicated. There, flat on his back and out cold, was a man with a woman over him stitching several small cuts closed. Accessing the mental chart everyone had been given, the FBI agent identified them as Lee Stetson and Amanda King-Stetson, a husband and wife team working as secret agents. "Yeah, I talked to them earlier; what about them?"

"The guy Lee looks just like a rather important person from where I am from by the name of John Sheridan."

Bill scratched his chin. "How important is he?"

"When I first met Sheridan he was captain of an interstellar space station called Babylon 5. Then he went on to become president of the Interstellar Alliance."

Bill dropped his bag of doggie treats. "All they had to say to me was that I reminded them of a U.S. spy they knew of by the name of Kelly Robinson."

Zack snorted at that. "They said I reminded them of a taxi driver named Bobby Wheeler. The reason they remember this guy is because they used his taxi during a long, high speed pursuit and ended up totaling it."

Maxwell picked up his bag off the stone floor, rising up with a groan. "Makes you wonder how many other copies of us might be out there."

"You don't think it's a fluke?"

They paused as a loud explosion on the far end of the greater chamber shock them, sending down dirt and a few rocks to rain down on them.

"Damn, if this gets a hairier, this place might just become our tomb!"

Zack brushed the dirt from his hair and wiped the dust particles from around his nose. "Hey, Bill, that theory of yours?"

"What theory? Which theory?"

"The doubles of people, you see those two over there?"

Bill wiped the grit from his eyes. In the general direction Zack was pointing he could see Albert Gibson, another secret agent, giving an emergency blood transfusion to a blond woman listed only as Nikita. Gibson was smooth talking the blond who was only partially coherent. Not that that bothered Gibson who just kept talking a mile a minute.

"I don't see any similarities. The lady's kinda cute, though."

"Not them. Look to the left."

It was instantly apparent to who Zack was referring. Sam O'Neill and MacGyver looked similar enough to be twin brothers. They were tying up a depowered drone with a jump rope they had borrowed from Dora. As they were setting her down, the two men could see Samantha Carter's Borgified face.

"Damn, we might be on to something with this twin thing. Just don't know what it is. I wish Ralph was here."

"Who's Ralph?"

"Ralph Hinkley. My last partner. Unofficial partner. Aliens gave him a super-suit and…" He paused after seeing the look he was getting from the other man.

"Aliens gave your partner a 'super-suit'?"

Maxwell rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on. We've both seen crazier things here."

Zach nodded in agreement. He'd seen way to many crazy things here. Things that would haunt his dreams if he managed to survive.

"_Immobulus!_"

The Terrus drone, one of the super-villains from the 30th century, found itself unable to move standing next to a similarly stilled Sleestak drone.

"A couple more of you lot and I'll have this hall plugged," the young wizard Harry Potter comment.

"Here's two more."

Harry whirled around with his wand extended, before relaxing with a sigh.

The Immortal boy Kenny rode atop the Gargoyle canine Bronx with his machete in hand while resting the blade on his shoulder. Bronx was dragging two broken drones over to him, one a Sleestak and the other Harry recognized as Frank Parker from the mental who's who list Professor X had uploaded into everyone's heads.

Harry immobilized both drones with a wave of his wand before saying "_Wingardium Leviosa!_" causing both drones to rise up due to his magic before moving them into position next to the others drones in his makeshift barricade.

"Now we just have to hope any new arrivals won't shoot through their comrades to get to us," remarked Kenny.

Harry appeared shaken at that thought. "They wouldn't do that, would they?" There were several wounded people tucked into a nearby alcove shaped in the rock wall of the cavern. It had been Harry's plan to hold up while reinforcement caught up to them, leaving some to care for the injured, allowing him to head back into the melee and catch up to his fiancée, Ginny, who has still fighting out there somewhere.

Kenny patted Bronx's shoulder before shrugging. "Possibly. With these drones it's hard to tell; they need every drone they can get, yet none of them seem to have more than an ounce of self-preservation."

The young wizard felt nausea. True, he'd already killed a few times today, but for people he himself had immobilized and set in position to be just outright killed for blocking the way. That consideration was just too wrong to entertain.

He wasn't able to reflect on that train of thought as it suddenly became moot as a large metal shelving unit suddenly blew up, thus providing the drones with another means of entrance.

A large, muscular drone with black fur over it's exposed skin, except for a single white stipe of hair around his eyes and down the side of his remaining organic arm, stepped into the formerly closed off area.

Before Harry could say the spell on the tip of his tongue, he suddenly began to gag even as his eyes began to tear from burning.

"Harry?" Kenny noticed the wizard's reaction with surprise. "What is-?"

Then it hit his olfactory senses with the like of nothing he had ever experienced in his 900 years of living, not even during the Black Plague.

Bronx, having a much more powerful sense of smell, reared up in surprise, throwing Kenny off his back.

The Immortal boy rolled on the ground with ease due to centuries of practice. "Harry! Use your wand!"

Unable to see clearly, Harry used a spell that would hopefully attack the source of his olfactory attack. "_Avis! Oppugno!_"

A flock of small birds flew out of the end of his wand and went to attack the approaching drone. Except every bird seemed to seize up and fall dead at it's feet.

Harry was on his knees now, gasping. He needed air. Clean air.

"_Deprimo!_" A powerful wind blew past them, sending the fowl air back at the odorous drone. Then before the wind let down, Harry used the bubble-head charm to keep clean air around his head and so he could breathe and see though his eyes still watered from the effects of the horrific stench.

Blinking back the rest of his tears, Harry could now recognize the drone as being one the Skeletor's Evil Warriors by the name of Stinkor, an actual anthropomorphic skunk with magical control over his fowl fragrance. Using a quick transfiguration spell, Harry turned the skunk-man into a small bottle of perfume.

Another crash happened to the barricade, and the cause nearly landed on Kenny. The female Founder, a liquid changeling, was thrashing wildly about with a unfamiliar drone that seemed to morph into a variety of forms, yet bore Borg implants the likes of which they hadn't seen before.

Kenny had his machete up to strike, but couldn't due to the fact that he was more likely to hit the Founder than whatever kind of Borg drone she was fighting. Bronx growled and snarled next to him, wanting to attack but was unnerved by the swirling shapes of the two as they crashed about.

"Step back. I'll hit them with a spell to make them sleep," said Harry, raising his wand as he prepared to use his magic.

"Look out!" A cry from above made them all look up, just as a figure flew down onto Harry.

The drone, made from Evil Horde member Mosquitor, had imbedded his needle nose-piece into Harry's shoulder as soon as he had landed on top of him, injecting him with the drone creating nanites.

Another figure fell out of the air, landing next to the drone, then kicked him in the chest, sending him spinning through the air, and crashing into a large shelving unit filled with spare parts. The man leapt over to the shelving unit and pulled it down so that it fell onto the prone Mosquitor.

"That's one squashed bug," he finally said.

Turning to the others, the dark and formidable man stepped over to the thrashing Founder and drone. Then, with surprising speed, he threw three object into their midst that caused large electrical shocks. Both bodies went limp. The form of the Founder slowly pulled itself together, while leaving a small mass of itself behind that was filled with grayish nanites. The drone's physique slowly morphed back into that of a dark haired young woman.

"That's Maya," Kenny said, recalling her from the mental roll call list in his head. "She's a Psychons. She joined a group of Humans that were surviving on Earth's moon, which had been sent hurtling out into the universe. She came upon a strange pylon and stepped inside, next thing she knew she was in this crazy land, and started exploring with a group of people she met."

"Don't care…who she…is," came a gurgling response from the Founder who had formed a face in the puddle of which she consisted. "Just…kill her…before she…recovers."

Kenny sighed in regret even as he raised his machete high.

The man in black grabbed hold of the machete by the blade, catching the boy Immortal by surprise. He was a strong, formidable man in black with two points sticking off the top of his head making him resemble a bat. In addition to that he had the red outline of a bat emblazoned on his chest. It kind of reminded him of a comic book character from where he came from.

"Kill only when necessary," the costumed man stated.

"That wasn't a mosquito you swatted down back there." Kenny tugged at his machete, willing to cut off the man's fingers if he had to. But the metal weapon remained firmly unclenched in his hand without even signs of giving or blood. He considered kicking the man in the balls, yet he somehow didn't think he'd succeed in doing so.

"You're going to get us all killed!" he snapped. A growling behind him made the boy smile. Bronx had recovered from the horrible smell attack from earlier. "Now let go of my machete and step back or I'll have to sick Bronx on you."

"No," answered the man in black as he kept an eye on the unusual dog.

Kenny frowned, and was more than a little concerned with the fact the strangely attired man wasn't even troubled about the possibility of having a close, aggressive encounter with the Gargoyle canine. "Who do you think you are?"

The athletic man in black grinned. "I'm Batman."

Kenny kicked himself mentally for not checking the mental check list in his head. Quickly taking the opportunity, Kenny was surprised to note the acclaim that Professor X had listed of him so he must be for real. But if this Batman could do even half of what the mutant telepath had listed under his abilities, Kenny would be more than a little impressed.

"Funny, you don't look like Bruce Wayne."

"What?" the costumed superhero managed to say, clearly startled.

Kenny allowed himself a grin. Professor X's list hadn't covered any of the costumed heroes' secret identities, but had mentioned that this Batman was not the first to take that name. Even so, Kenny had been putting two and two together for a long time. "The universe I'm from Batman is a well-known comic book character. The defender of Gotham City, the Dark Knight, the locater of inmates for Arkham Asylum."

Terry McGinnis wasn't sure what to make of Kenny, but his mentor, Bruce, had filled him in on the many theories of alternate realities, and even a few he had had contact with. From what he had been told it was possible, though he rather hoped that his own life wouldn't be trivialized as something as lame as a comic book. He wouldn't mind so much if it became a movie as long as the producers had a decent script and actors. While weighing these matters, McGinnis missed a few other important events happening around them.

"_Stupefy_," came a groaning voice. A beam of light struck the Psychon drone just as she was raising her head, rendering her once again unconscious.

All eyes turned to Harry Potter where he was sitting up, his body racked with pain from the intruding nano-probes, his wand shakily pointed in their direction. The grey nanites of the Borg were evident as they spread across the features of his face. The young wizard managed to swish the wand again sending an incendiary beam of magic at the small, gray quivering protoplasmic mass that has been ejected from the female Founder's liquid body, reducing it to ashes.

"Good job, Harry. Now put down the wand," Kenny said with alarm. He prepared himself to throw his machete at the wizard if he had to.

"S-s-sorry." With a quaking hand, Harry turned his wand at himself, and cried out in defiance, "_Stupefy_!" before collapsing like a puppet with it's strings cut onto the floor.

The Batman shook his head, a bat-a-rang held tightly in his hand. "For a moment I thought he was going to off himself."

"Least he handled what to do about the situation," Kenny responded tersely, absently scratching behind Bronx's ears.

The Founder shape shifter gurgled out a response in anger "Still… need to… kill her! Still… a threat!" She pointed a rather limp, wobbly tendril at the unconscious Psychon drone stretched out on the stone floor.

"No killing," the costumed crusader reiterated, giving the alien look that stressed that he was not going to be moved from this stance, and woe to those that tried to. "Not until it is absolutely necessary."

Using the limited control she had over her body, the Founder slinked away, moving her body snakelike underneath a low bench, choosing to hid for now and allow her body to heal.

"Cheerful thing, isn't she?" Kenny chuckled, trying to find something amusing in the disaster around them. "Well, let's move them someplace safe before-"

One of the large cabinets making one of their walls fell over with a loud bang. Two men were grappling with an unusually made drone that appeared to be part Sleestak, part something blue. The others dared not to attack for fear of hitting one of the men.

Kenny's mind raced as he tried to determine who the intruders were and what they were capable of. Thanks to Professor X's mental list, he was able to identify the blue half attached to the Sleestak drone was actually one of the alien Garguax's super-strong blue plastic androids with a few regular Borg attachments. Grappling with the colorful drone appeared to be two ordinary men who were actually quite extraordinary when you look at their history. The older, white haired man was colonel in the military before being framed for a bank heist while serving in Vietnam. Unable to prove the innocence of him and his men, they deserted and returned to the good old US of A. While trying to find ways to clear their name, they would hire themselves out to these in desperate need of their unique skills. And no matter the circumstances, Col. John '_Hannibal_' Smith would come up with a brilliant, over-the-top plan for the A-Team to execute. The other man was actually a spy of extraordinary talent belonging to Her Majesty's Secret Service as Agent 007, James Bond.

Kenny and Batman exchanged a glance before stepping toward the battling trio, ready, willing and able to help put the drone down.

It was only as Bronx knocked him out of the way, and took the brunt of the collision, that Kenny realized that something had swooped down upon him. The Immortal boy bounced across the stone floor, breaking at least one bone in his elbow, but he managed to keep ahold of his machete due to centuries of experience. The blade had cut into his thigh some, but hadn't cut much of the muscle, just skinned a hand-sized section of skin. Add in his other cuts and bruises and it accumulated as only very minor damage that, in his familiarity, should be completely healed in less than ten minutes.

Hearing Bronx's snarls and growls, Kenny looked up to see the Gargoyle canine savagely biting and scratching at Goliath. The leader of the Gargoyle clan bore the evident marks of the first stage of becoming a drone on his skin. The Gargoyle drone had silently glided down out of the air thanks to his wings in order to strike at them.

A much larger and louder shape came flying low over wall of shelving aimed at the shadowy Batman. Even though the Dark Knight was the unusually large drone's target, Kenny still had to roll out of the behemoth's way or be crushed to death, which was his second worst way to die (burning to death being the first).

With the towering drone of at least 30 feet focused on Batman, Kenny took the chance of striking at the giant's legs with his machete. The resulting clang sent reverberations through his weapon and into his arms. It was only as he rushed to the opposite way that Batman was moving that he realized that what he had hit was a partially stripped down Decepticon that the Borg had captured. The mental list in Kenny's head quickly labeled the massive automation as Dirge. The Immortal boy was also surprised to learn that the giant robot could (at least before the Borg took it over) transform itself into a replica of an American fighter jet, though why a sophisticated alien robotic entity would convert itself into a primitive shape was something he couldn't fathom.

Batman proved to be incredibly agile as he leapt about, dodging the lasers and the grasping metal hand of the giant drone. Even in Kenny's 900 years of living he had never seen anyone with the sheer nerve exhibited by this mystery man in black. Each attack the Batman made was quick and precise in order to test the giant robot for weakness. Finding cover further away, Kenny turned to reexamine Batman's adversary. Many of the many of the cover plating had been removed, possibly for providing resources to fashion more drones or so the Borg could examine and augment to suit their purposes.

It was the head of the Decepticon-turned-drone that Kenny noticed the next big difference. Instead of either the left or right side of the head be normal while the other side cybernetically encased metal during assimilation, the top section of Dirge's head just above his eyes had been removed and in it's place was a transparent dome with a greyish-pink head visible bearing the red laser optical device in place of one of it's eye. It took Kenny just a little longer to recognize the creature under the glass dome as Krang, a super-genius that consisted of a head made of proto-matter with a few small tentacles that usually residing in the chest cavity of his Human-shaped exo-suit.

"Looks like you've traded up for a bigger body," Kenny remarked to himself. He felt helpless, knowing there was nothing he could do as Batman tried to knock the Dirge/Krang drone over. It was a feeling that came up from time to time when in a situation where he could do absolutely do nothing, like when the Titanic went down. He had been fortunate not to have been hit by the propeller as he fell. There were people all around dying in the freezing, black waters, and he could do nothing but huddle on his small makeshift raft. True, he had been able to scavenge the contents of a few wallets and purses, but that was neither here nor there. It wasn't as if the likes of Caledon Hockley needed his wallet anymore.

It was then he saw the Dirge/Krang drone almost stepped onto the prone figure of Harry Potter.

Muttering an all but forgotten Gaelic curse he liked, Kenny found himself racing over to his fallen comrade's side, intent on dragging him clear of the battling duo stumbling about overhead like the National Debt, threatening to come crashing down on them at any moment. But before he could grab a limb of the stunned, infected wizard, he became aware of another intent on the same prize. A drone of unusual ugliness.

The approaching drone had a greenish-gray complexion, a bony thin frame, and a long, thin nose that stuck out nearly six inches from his face. Kenny was reminded instantly of tales told to him by the Brothers Grimm, Wilhelm and Jacob.

"I seek no quarrel with you, young Immortal," spoke the drone with unusual self-clarity. "The Borg no longer hold sway over me. I am here seeking my own interests, interests that the wizard there can help me achieve."

The faux-boy eyed the creature, wondering at it's motives. Help was not likely to come anytime soon, but his best bet was to play for time, and hopefully learn something about it. "What do you want him for?"

The malevolent amalgamated being cackled. "With this young pile of sorcerous meat, I'll raise a throne of power for Blix to seat!"

Kenny gritted his teeth and snarled. "So your name is Blix, is it?" The 900 year old boy stepped closer to Harry in order to protect him while simultaneously holding his blade in a manner that suggested he was ready to carve Blix's guts out. "Well, you can't have Harry! So back off, you-you long-nosed Imp!"

Blix trembled with rage. "Imp!" he spat. "You dare to call the mighty goblin Blix an Imp? I was powerful before becoming a drone! Now that I am free of their mental chains, I shall take the abilities of the Borg for my own use! But before I do that, I'll consume your soul for that slight to me!"

Kenny didn't back down. If anything, he seemed to rise to the occasion. "I've sat down with angels and had a conversation with the devil himself. I'm not afraid of facing you alone."

"But you are not alone," came a soft answer next to him.

"Monica?" was all Kenny could manage to say to the angel suddenly beside him showered in heavenly glory. Even though he had seen Monica revealed in heavenly splendor a few months back when the Rosemont Convention Center in Seattle, Washington had been invaded by the dimension-crossing Borg during a nation-wide law enforcement conference.

"Hello, Kenny," said the angel of God. "You've been doing well."

"Uh, I'm still a work in progress," he mumbled, feeling awkward, and almost tried to hide his machete behind his back. "Can't quite seem to turn the other cheek yet."

She smiled. "Not to worry; I'm actually here to deal with Blix so you won't have to."

The non-controlled Goblin drone gnashed it's teeth in fury. "Flee from here, servant of the Light, before I destroy you with devices beyond your ken!" To stress his point, Blix pointed his Borg prosthetic arm directly at her while growling. "Test me not, holy messenger, or I'll do you in!"

Monica shook her head as if she were about to reproach an unruly child. Her air of confidence as well as the holiness around her was as unnerving to Blix as it was comforting to Kenny. "You forget yourself, little Goblin. There is nothing that God does not know, and He is more powerful than you can imagine."

"See if your god is powerful enough to stop this!" crowed the hideous drone, as it fired it's Borg weaponry at its highest setting.

Monica stood her ground without so much as flinching. The deadly beam of energy heading toward her seemed to dissipate into nothingness before it even touched her.

The angel smiled sweetly. "I believe it's my turn now."

The light around Monica began to intensify as it spread out to include the now terrified Blix. Kenny tried to see through the growing brilliance but found he had to turn his head away. Then it was gone as if the light had never been there. Monica was nowhere to be seen, and were Blix was was now a pile of Borg equipment that had been on him.

Kenny was knocked out of his shock by the Dirge/Krang drone crashing down onto the rock floor almost twenty feet from him. Two figures leapt through the air, landing on the giant drone's chest and began attacking. Kenny was amused that Batman had found an effective fighting companion in the large, red-skinned Hellboy. The Immortal boy couldn't help but wonder how Monica would have reacted to the demonic nature of the heroic Hellboy.

As the fighting suddenly moved ten feet closer to him, Kenny realized something he had forgotten. Running over, Kenny practically pounced on the stunned Harry Potter still on the floor. He almost left the wizard's wand behind, but saw it on the rock floor as he was dragging him away by his arms.

A loud clatter as one of the makeshift barricades came down alerted him to a new danger as his escape route back to the others was now blocked off. Pulling out his machete again, he turned to regard his new foe. The form was basically that of a humanoid robot mainly colored green with some areas in orange, and oddly enough, it had a Sleestak arm in place of one of it's own. Aside from some obvious Borg circuitry spread over it like a spider web, Kenny couldn't see any other changes to the robot. A quick access to the memory chart in his head soon provided him with answers under the name of Metallo. He was a murderer who had had his brain transplanted into a powerful robot body uniquely powered by a small chunk of green kryptonite. The missing organic component Kenny had been expecting in all drones was actually hidden inside the brain of the Metallo's metal skull.

Kenny quickly put his blade away. His machete wasn't going to cut through the cyborg's metal neck. He looked over to Bronx, hoping he was available to help. The Gargoyle canine had evidently mauled Goliath in their fight as evident in the wounds on leader of the clan of Gargoyles, unfortunately in doing so Bronx had gotten a mouthful of nano-probes that had been in Goliath's system which now was infecting Bronx. Grabbing the wizard's arm, he pulled Harry off to the side, hoping that the Metallo drone would focus it's attention on the other combatants in the room. He wasn't at all sure that it was the right decision, not after being rescued by an angel.

He looked up to the cavern ceiling and said a quick prayer while trying to not notice the approaching shuffling of the drone's feet.

"Lord…, um, I'm still not that good at talking to you. And that's mostly my fault, or more likely all my fault. Thanks for sending Monica to save me, by the way. And I know it's really soon since the last time you helped me, but I'd really hope you could send us some more help this way. Hopefully before any more of us get turned into drones or killed." He pulled him around a counter, keeping himself low. "Oh, and sorry for the rush in this prayer. The whole being in a combat zone and all that, you know."

He looked behind him only to notice that he was at a dead end.

"Definitely could use a miracle about now."

The Immortal boy lifted his head at a strange sound that seemed to come from nowhere. The steps of the Metallo drone was soon masked by a metallic grinding noise that seemed to permeate the large underground chamber.

He began to chuckle as recognized the sound. "That should do, Lord. Thank you very much."

**AUTHOR's NOTES**

_Hope you liked the new chapter. Anyone guess what the grinding noise signifies?_

_Yes, I did add Dora the Explorer to the mix. The Dora show is my 5 year old daughter's favorite so I thought it would be cute to have her give Dana a hand._

**In order of appearance or mention**

Dr. Juliet Parrish – from the TV series V – The Series

Dr. Stephen Franklin – from the TV series Babylon 5

Philip – from the TV series V – The Series

President John Sheridan – from the TV series Babylon 5 (mentioned only)

Michael Garibaldi – from the TV series Babylon 5

Mike Donovan – from the TV series V – The Series (mentioned only)

Elizabeth Maxwell – from the TV series

Borg Queen – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager (mentioned only)

Diana – from the TV series V – The Series (mentioned only)

Willie – from the TV series V – The Series

Thelma – from the TV series V – The Series

Constable Benton Fraser – from the TV series Due South

Diefenbaker – from the TV series Due South

Dana Scully – from the TV series X-Files

Boxey – from the TV series Battlestar Galactica (the original)

Apollo – from the TV series Battlestar Galactica (the original)

Dominic Santini – from the TV series Airwolf

Duncan MacLeod – from the TV series Highlander (mentioned only)

Ephiny – from the series Xena: Warrior Princess

Capt. H.M. "Howlin' Mad" Murdock – from the TV series The A-Team

Dora – from the cartoon Dora The Explorer

Boots – from the cartoon Dora The Explorer

Map – from the cartoon Dora The Explorer (mentioned only)

Swiper – from the cartoon Dora The Explorer (mentioned only)

Xenos – from the series Xena: Warrior Princess (mentioned only)

B.A. Baracus – from the A-Team (mentioned only)

Bill Maxwell – from the TV series The Greatest American Hero

Dr. Sarah Chambers – from the TV series Crusade

Lt. John Matheson – from the TV series Crusade

Bobby Hobbes – from the TV series Invisible Man

Darien Fawkes – from the TV series Invisible Man (mentioned only)

Zack Allen – from the TV series Babylon 5

Lee Stetson – from the TV series Scarecrow And Mrs. King

Amanda King-Stetson – from the TV series Scarecrow And Mrs. King

Kelly Robinson – from the TV series I Spy (mentioned only)

Bobby Wheeler – from the TV series Taxi (mentioned only)

Albert Gibson – from the movie True Lies

Nikita – from the TV series La Femm Nikita

Sam O'Neill – from the series Stargate SG-1

MacGyver – from the TV series MacGyver

Samantha Carter – from the TV series Stargate SG-1

Ralph Hinkley – from the TV series The Greatest American Hero

Terrus – from DC Comics

Sleestak – from the TV series The Land Of The Lost

Harry Potter – from the Harry Potter book series

Kenny – from the TV series Highlander

Bronx – from the cartoon Gargoyles

Frank Parker – from the TV series Seven Days

Professor X – from the movie X-Men (mentioned only)

Ginny Weasley – from the Harry Potter book series (mentioned only)

Stinkor – from the cartoon He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe

Female Founder – from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Mosquitor – from the cartoon She-Ra: Princess Of Power

Maya – from the TV series Space: 1999

Batman (Terry McGinnis) – from the cartoon Batman Beyond

Batman (Bruce Wayne) – from DC Comics (mentioned only)

Garguax – from DC Comics (mentioned only)

Col. John '_Hannibal_' Smith – from the TV series The A-Team

James Bond – from the movies (take your pick)

Goliath – from the cartoon Gargoyles

Dirge – from the cartoon Transformers

Krang – from the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Caledon Hockley – from the movie Titanic (mentioned only)

Wilhelm Grimm – from the movie Brothers Grimm (mentioned only)

Jacob Grimm – from the movie Brothers Grimm (mentioned only)

Blix – from the movie Legend

Monica – from the TV series Touched By An Angel

Hellboy – from the movie Hellboy

Metallo – from DC Comics


	49. Chapter 49

**A Tangled Web Part 8**

**Chapter 49**

_**AUTHOR's NOTE**__**:**__ This chapter is a nod to many of the Saturday morning cartoon shows of the 60's thru 80's, focusing mostly on the superheroes put out by Hanna-Barbara. But for those that are unfamiliar with some of the heroes I selected, I will have a small glossary at the bottom of the page explaining about some of the more unfamiliar heroes. There is an index right before that containing all the names in the order they appear as well as the shows they came from. Enjoy._

It was with great relief that Kenny watched the TARDIS materialize almost twenty feet from him. He waved to Zack Allen where he and the others were bunkered in at the smaller side cavern for the wounded, making sure that they knew things were about to change. Hopefully for the better.

The youthful appearing Immortal was surprised that the Metallo drone had stopped coming towards him and Harry, but was now studying the newly arrived British styled phone box from fifty feet away. That worried him more. He had no desire to spend eternity as an Immortal drone of the Borg.

As he headed over to the time traveling vehicle while dragging Potter across the rough rock floor by one of his arms, Kenny kept a wary eye on Bronx. The Gargoyle canine's attack on the Goliath drone had had an unexpected result. While Bronx did win the battle, the areas where he had bit the leader of his Gargoyle clan had infected his mouth with nanites that were slowly trying to take him over. The large creature growled and whined as it tried to wipe away the tiny invaders that were entering his body through his mouth. Kenny knew it was only a matter of time before the Borg gained control over his dear friend. The Immortal boy also glanced over at Goliath, whose body was being quickly repaired by the same nanites. Kenny realized that both Bronx and Goliath were the victims here, but if he had a chance to save just one of them, it wouldn't be Goliath.

His only hope to save any of them at this point was the Doctor. He was just about to start pounding on the TARDIS door when it sprang open and out stepped a long-faced man.

"Who are you?" Kenny huffed in surprise, back peddling as this man he had never seen before quickly came out.

The man took a moment to give him a grin. "I'm the Doctor, Kenny. Good to see you again!"

A puzzled look crossed Kenny's face as he took in yet another newly arrived Doctor. "How many regenerations have you had?"

"I could counter by asking how many times you can come back from being killed," he responded with a bit of cheek.

The 900 year old boy waved away his annoyance. "Can you undue the Borg effect? You see Harry and-"

"-and Bronx have been infected, yes, yes, I know all that," acknowledged the Twelfth Doctor as he stepped past Kenny, to observe the mayhem going on around them. Taking a small, black box out of his inner suit pocket, he opened it to reveal a rather large syringe. Turning around, the Doctor jabbed down with the large needle deep into the still stupefied Harry Potter's thigh, making Kenny wince. Just because he was an Immortal who could heal from practically any injury didn't mean he disliked needles any less. Not that Harry seemed to notice it.

The not-so-young boy was about to ask him how he knew what had been happening when several other people began filing out of the TARDIS, a few he recognized from reading comic books or watching Saturday morning cartoons.

_Professor X?_ Kenny thought loudly.

_Yes, Kenny_, came the quicker than expected reply with a very weary tone, _and not so forceful, please_.

_A new Doctor popped up, and he's brought a few new recruits for you to add to your mental database._

Professor X let out a tired mental sigh. He'd been run ragged fighting the telepathic villains. That Dr. Psycho proved to be a real pain in both frontal lobes. _I see. I'll have to wait until each person clears the TARDIS as my mental abilities cannot reach inside it._

"TIMBERRR!" hollered out a voice from above. "Hey, watch out, Kenny!"

At the Batman's call, Kenny looked up to see the massive Dirge/Krang drone falling backwards right where it would land on top of him and the others standing around the TARDIS.

A man of Native American descent wearing only a leather vest and some odd type of shorts stepped forward shouting "Eh-neeek-chock!" Suddenly he sprouts upwards, growing fast enough to catch the falling drone, and push it off to the side, even as he continues to grow, stopping just before he hit any of the stalactites hanging from the ceiling even though he was somewhat hunched over.

"Now you're one big fella!" Batman called out from where he clung from a stalactite. "Nice to have you around. He managed to get away from me after he blasted Hellboy all the way across the cavern."

The giant looked at him in surprise. "Batman?"

"That's me, chief. And you are?"

"Uh, I'm actually called Apache Chief," he said, as if he halfway expected him to recognize him.

Terry McGinnis frowned. Then was surprised as the mental checklist supplied by Professor X was updated. Apache Chief was there listed under the white hats. As was Batman and Robin?! What the?! And is that Batgirl, too? Taking a quick look down, McGinnis saw that they were with a number of other famous heroes he knew, but looking a whole lot younger. He instantly recognized Superman, Flash, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, and wow, Wonder Woman sure looks hot, even with the retro hairdo!

A movement to the side caught his eye. "Watch out, Chief!"

The Dirge/Krang drone was righting itself even as it lashed out with one arm, the enlarged nano-probe injecting tubules meaning to inject the giant Apache hero.

Impeding the attack was an impenetrable form with a 'S' on the front of his uniform. "Sorry, but I believe my friend has already had his flu shots this year," came the strong, yet light-hearted comment from the man of steel.

"Thanks, Superman," replied Apache Chief.

"Don't mention it," Superman said with a grin as he began to tie the large pipe sized tubules into a knot worth of a Boy Scout.

McGinnis watched as Hawkman and Hawkgirl took to the air to scout the area. He bit his tongue to keep from telling them to be careful. They were seasoned fighters and knew what the risks are. Black Vulcan and Green Lantern flew off in the other direction where a series of explosions had just occurred but was too far to see how it had occurred. The Flash blurred away as he did reconnaissance on the ground.

A nearby outcry drew the attention of all those that remained as the Kryptonian convulsed in pain, and fell out of the air.

"Superman!" Apache Chief lunged forward to catch his fellow Justice Leaguer only to be struck back by the Dirge/Krang drone.

"Kaze no Yō ni Hayaku!" shouted one of the newcomers, who was of Japanese origin. The lower half of Samurai's body had a small tornado form around it, lifting him through the air with enough speed to catch the falling Superman and then gently lower him to the ground.

"K-kryptonite," stuttered the weakened hero.

The source of the kryptonite radiation was easily apparent as the Metallo drone had a section of his chest cavity open exposing the green kryptonite that the pre-Borg Metallo used as a power source for his robotic body.

"Got it!" Green Arrow let fly one of his trick arrows that struck and splattered a grey liquid all over the front of the Metallo drone. "Lead paint. That should do the trick."

"Nailed it!" Green Arrow's protégé, Speedy, whooped with his fist in the air, the excitement of this venture. Speedy's teammates in the Teen Titans, shook their heads at his wild behavior, but made them even determined to show the adult heroes that they at least could be mature and responsible.

The blond woman next to the emerald archer raised an eyebrow at him. "Of all the arrows you have, why do you have one that sprays lead paint?"

Green Arrow smiled at her. "Are you kidding, pretty bird? With all the times we keep coming across kryptonite in our adventures, not to mention other radioactive materials? The real question should be why didn't I think to come up with an arrow like that sooner?"

At this, Black Canary rolled her eyes.

"They didn't have that ability when they invaded our world nearly two years ago," commented Aquaman.

Aqualad kept his eyes alert. "Robin told us how they made drones out of several members of the Legion Of Doom. But the Justice League managed to defeat them, and restore the bodies of their victims."

"That's why," said Aquaman, "when the Doctor came to us in order to halt the Borg from polluting other worlds we gathered everyone we could to fight. We understood the threat they pose to everyone."

Aqualad gave his mentor a puzzled look. "If we needed all the help we could get, why didn't we wait for Doctor Mist to gather together the Global Guardians?"

"It would have taken too long; besides, someone needed to stay behind to guard the Earth. And they do call themselves 'Global Guardians' after all," he answered with a slight chuckle.

"We could have at least brought some more heroes, not that we don't have a lot already, it's just we can't really afford to lose."

The king of the seven seas frowned. "We didn't really have time to wait around."

"That's just it," said his underwater sidekick, "we traveled here in a time machine. We literally had all the time we needed."

They all looked up as Superman cried out in pain again.

"Superman!" This time it was from the Batman that had arrived in the TARDIS. "What's wrong?"

"Holy guacamole, Batman!" called out Robin. "Those other drones, they're all glowing green!"

"The Borg have adapted the ability to radiate green kryptonite from Metallo," the Doctor reasoned, noting that even the drones that Harry Potter had previously hit with the body bound spell were emitting green kryptonite radiation.

Green Arrow swore. "And I've only got two more lead paint arrows."

"I've got one, too," offered Speedy, selecting the arrow from his quiver.

Scratching at his beard, Green Arrow frowned. "I could probably paint Superman with them, but there's no telling if it would cover all of him."

"No problem," assured a red and gold costumed young man with hair made of flames, as he stepped to the front. "I'll just transmute a lead blanket around-"

Before Firestorm could finish his sentence, let alone do any transmuting, a stun beam struck him in the chest knocking him out.

Wonder Woman moved forward repelling additional stun beams from the Metallo drone with her magic bracelets. Her sidekick, Wonder Girl joined her in blocking the attack.

"Samurai!" called out the Batman on the ground. "Take Superman into the TARDIS! He should be protected from the kryptonite radiation while in there!"

"Yes!" agreed the Time-Lord. "The radiation won't penetrate the TARDIS walls," he said as Samurai flew the legendary man of steel to safety. "Take him down the main corridor, turn left at the third corridor, eleven doors down on the right you will find a room that has yellow solar light lamps. Those should have him up in no time."

"Hey, the giant is moving again!" the futuristic Batman warned to those below him. That said, he launched himself at the Dirge/Krang drone hoping that by taking out the Krang part on top he could take down the entire drone. Nearly a meter from his goal, he was abruptly swatted out of the air and ended up being slammed against the cavern wall with the wind knocked out of him. His vision blurred as he began to plummet down. Panic was just about to register with him when a feeling of weightlessness came over him and his downward spiral began to slow.

"Easy, I won't let you fall," came a feminine tone, confident and strong.

Floating next to him was a young woman with long, red hair in a purple body suit, the legs of a darker shade than the rest. "Are you an angel?" As the fog in his head lifted, the mental cheat sheet in his head let him know that she was actually an alien from another planet, and a princess of that planet as well, though she had left that life of leisure in order to use her powers to help fight the forces of darkness.

"You can call me Gravity Girl!" she said, amused.

McGinnis lifted his head to the sounds of battle. The Dirge/Krang drone was being bombarded by an aerial attack by Space Ghost, Birdman, Birdboy and Isis while it's legs were being attacked by Hercules and armored form of Super Samurai (the last three are members of Freedom Force).

As she brought the two of them to the ground near the TARDIS, McGinnis went to step down only to come crashing down as Gravity Girl returned his weight to him.

"Easy there," came a strong voice as some grabbed his arm, keeping him from going flat on his face on the ground.

Terry McGinnis looked up at a very familiar face, even if most of it was covered by a mask and was decades younger, he knew that face. "Bruce?"

Batman kept the shock out of his voice, even as Robin and Batgirl gapped behind them. "You and I are going to have to have a very serious talk later." He pulled Terry's arm over his shoulder, and nodded to Robin to do the same with the man's other arm. "I take it you're from the future."

McGinnis wasn't sure what he should say. The spinning in his head didn't help matters. "Uh, yeah, one possible future, I guess. Or maybe a possible future of another reality altogether. Who knows for sure?"

Their progress to the safety of the TARDIS was impeded when Batgirl stepped in the way, staring at her Batman. "How did I not see it before? You're Bruce-"

"This is not the time for this, Batgirl," he said coolly.

"But you're Br-"

"Barbara!" Bruce Wayne a.k.a. Batman snapped, knowing that would get her attention.

"Barbara?" Robin shook his head in surprise before look intently at the female member of their team. "Barbara Gordon? Commissioner Gordon's daughter?"

Batgirl's eyes managed to widen further. "You knew my identity all this time? Why didn't you tell me?" She felt foolish as she thought of the extremes she had gone to keep her Batgirl identity a secret.

"Tell you?" Robin felt floored, and a bit betrayed. "Why didn't he tell me?"

"It wasn't my secret to tell," Batman said, leaving off any other explanations as he practically dragged the slumping, mysterious Batman from the future, along with Robin into the TARDIS, leaving a perplexed Batgirl behind. Aquaman drew her out of her thoughts by having her help him get Firestorm in to safety as well.

A large blast of lightning in the distance followed by a series of green light indicated that Black Vulcan and Green Lantern were fighting the Borg as well.

"I knew we should have brought Frankenstein, Jr.," spout Coil-Man as the chubby hero in purple sprung up and down nervously on his coil-shaped legs.

"Buzz Conroy was in the middle of rebuilding him," answered Fluid-Man. "Besides, Coiley, Frankenstein, Jr. wouldn't fit in here. It's dangerous enough with those two colossuses duking it out in here; Frankenstein, Jr. would have brought the ceiling down." He winced when Apache Chief stepped on the dead Mosquitor drone, reducing the corpse to a grayish red smear.

Seeing an opportunity to get involved, Fluid-Man splashed his watery form upwards like a geyser in order to catch the blond Hercules out of the air after the giant drone had kicked him.

Hercules gave Fluid-Man his thanks. "The robot has quite the kick to it," he said, wincing as he stood up. "That was quick work, catching me like that. My friend Mercury in the Space Sentinels would have been hard pressed to do better. And trust me, he was fast."

Apache Chief had renewed his attack. The Decepticon drone was stronger than the American Indian, and faster than the usual drones due to it's robotic nature, but the hero was well versed in the art of grappling. Apache Chief grew a bit more to increase his strength, but didn't dare go any larger as he was already scraping the stalactites of the cavern ceiling, or worse, he could fall on someone, crushing them to death.

Below the clash of the titans, the Doctor spoke directly to another member of the Impossibles. "Multi-Man, that opening over there," he said, pointing over to where Zack Allen stood next to Dominic Santini, both staring with astonishment at what they were seeing. "We have a number of wounded there. They need to be brought into the TARDIS. Use any rooms in the first corridor, but not the second door on the left or the first fourth and sixth doors on the right. Do not open those doors." He provided him with a very stern look to show how serious he was about that, too. "Leave the dead for now; we will have to come back for them when it is safer."

The long-haired redhead hero gulped, but nodded in accepting his assignment. Hurrying forward he held his left hand out in front of him and began to multiply exact copies of himself in front of him as he headed to his task.

"Hey Doc." Plastic Man's head hung in the air with the rest of his elastic body following after it. "Can you do anything for…whatever this is?" The stretchable sleuth's left hand was shaped like a giant spatula and had a misshaped thing on it that had some evident Borg paraphernalia attached. "Looks like the worst road kill I've ever seen. Saddest thing is that it's still alive."

The Doctor knelt down with great sadness. "Dear Maya, look at what they have done to you." Carefully he readied an injection, adjusting the solution before administering it to her. "This should free your mind and take away most of the pain, but we'll have to wait until the fighting is over to get you all patched up. Sleep for now; everything will be better soon."

"I take it you know…her?" Plastic Man gently morphed his hand from that of a spatula to that of a soft mattress on a hospital bed.

"Yes," he said, softly. "She's one of the last of her a race, a Psychon. A shapeshifter. Not the stretching kind like you, but one that can actually turn into other species. In her reality she first met people from Earth when an accident had caused an explosion that sent the Earth's moon spiraling out into the universe, including a large manned lunar station."

"She's asleep," Kenny interrupted, eyeing the syringe the Doctor was using. "Harry, here," he nodded down at unconscious form of Harry Potter, who Plastic Man was already lifting up with his other hand shaped like a spatula. "He hit her with a sleep spell so she will probably be out for awhile." He scratched his chin with the edge of his machete. "So you know her?"

The Doctor nodded. "She's going to become one of my previous regenerations' traveling companions."

"Ah! I see," Kenny said, now understanding, having only recently become one of the time lord's companions as he jetted across space and time.

A young, yet kind, voice interrupted. "Um, Doctor?" A South American teenage boy with a green globe emblem on his t-shirt stood there. "When Gaia asked us to come with you, she explained that we," he nodded to his four friends behind him, wouldn't be able to call forth Captain Planet here since this isn't Earth. And that our magic rings will only have a limited charge until we get back." Ma-Ti reached out to rest a hand on the misshapen form of Maya. "I think the power of the heart will be able to help her, even in her unconscious state. At least, I would like to try, if that is all right with you."

"I think even Captain Planet would agree with you that it is one of the best uses of your power," concurred the Doctor. "Let me know the results and we'll send you some more poor souls in need."

"I'll try not to let you down," said the very serious boy.

"You," the Doctor pointed at Plastic Man, "get those two inside!"

He noticed one of the Multi-Man doubles carrying a young Hispanic girl and a monkey, followed by two other Multi-Man doubles helping to support a man with a broken leg.

The Doctor stopped Plastic Man for a moment. "After you put them inside, go help Multi-Man; maybe turn yourself into a large conveyer belt to help some of the more seriously wounded. We need to get them in quickly and as smoothly as possible."

"Hey, I can help with that!" He was a black man with a neat short cut afro wearing a pink turtleneck. If he didn't have his wife, Microwoman, standing right next to him, a few people would have wondered about his sexual orientation. Instead, they just assumed he was color blind. "I could shape myself into a convey belt," Superstretch went on. "But I don't think I can hold that shape while stretching all the way between from where they are and the TARDIS. Maybe I can start and by the time Plastic Man gets back he can meet me half way. And be the second section of the Human conveyor movement."

"Yes, yes, go to it already," the Doctor spoke, trying to focus on other problems while Plastic Man and Superstretch went to their tasks.

Ma-Ti's pet spider monkey Suchi ended his game of tag with his two new simian friends, Blip and Gleek, and trailed after his Human friend into the TARDIS. Blip grabbed Gleek's tail to get his attention, then pointed to two blue skinned people that were their size. Whether Plutem and Glax, also known as the Astromites, knew it or not, they were about to be inducted in a game of tag.

Kid Flash pulled the deeply contemplating Doctor to the side as a ricochet off one on Wonder Woman's bracelets came close to hitting him. Then, in the air on the far side of the cavern, he spied Hawkman being struck by a stun beam and ran off to help.

"Don't leave," began the Doctor, having planned to keep the speedster in reserve until absolutely necessary. "Would someone incapacitate that drone, please?" snapped the time lord.

"I'm all over it!" called out the purple clad Coil-Man, his arms and legs shifted into giant springs as he sprung forward.

"No, I've got him!" Dynomutt extended himself forward to try get to the Metallo drone first. The result was a collision where the two heroes became entangled around the drone they were trying to apprehend.

"Dog Blunder," grumbled Blue Falcon as he hurried forward to try and detangle his robotic Doberman from the mess he'd gotten himself into. "Will you ever learn?"

Kenny pulled on the Doctor's sleeve, determined to have his attention. "The stuff in the needle, can it save Bronx? …And Goliath?" He knew he had to save Goliath, too, but part of him couldn't help thinking that if Goliath were to die, then maybe Bronx could stay with him, and they could travel with the Doctor together.

The Gargoyle canine, Bronx, appeared to be in almost total control by the Borg, while the head of the Gargoyle clan, already turned drone, Goliath, was now climbing to his feet, the nanites in his system having repaired nearly all the damage Bronx had inflicted.

"Goliath, huh?" said a young man in a white short sleeved shirt. He had hung back to wait for the right time for him to come forward, and now that time was here. "Mind if my Goliath and I handle them, Doctor?"

The time-lord paused, before nodded his approval. "See if you can pin them long enough for them to get an injection, though considering the tough skin of the Gargoyles the injection may have to be in an area of softer tissue like the tongue or eye. I'd rather not have to inject their eyes, if at all possible; the injection would probably blind them irrevocably."

The young man's face took a stoic edge, and gave a slight nod of his head in understanding. Taking a step back with his small white dog next to him, he slammed together the two golden wristbands he wore. The transformation was practically instantaneous. The young man grew taller and muscular, his pants were replaced with white shorts and a thick gold belt around his waist, his shirt remained white but was of an older fashion, his shoes became leather boots going up halfway up his calves. Turning to his pooch, the larger version of Samson slammed the wristbands together again releasing a shockwave of energy. The white dog immediately converted into an entirely different species – in it's place was a massive, super powered, seven foot tall lion.

"Save your strength, I have this," remarked Gravity Girl. The redheaded princess of the planet Gravitas flew up and used her ability to bend the laws of gravity around the two Gargoyles, increasing their weight until they were pinned to the cavern floor. She turned to give the others a smile, never seeing the stun beam.

A flash of flame was all they could see as Kid Comet of Teen Force raced through the air, catching the unconscious heroine. "Gotcha!" He zoomed back almost as fast, dodging two other shots at him.

"There!" shouted the diminutive hero known as the Atom, pointing to where two men were fighting with an unusual looking drone in the opening to another corridor. The mental lists in their heads, approved of by Elektra of Teen Force (because they weren't just going to trust anything from people they don't know suddenly inserted into their heads), showed the two men to be Col. John 'Hannibal' Smith and British Secret Service agent James Bond. The drone was half Sleestak and half of a blue plastic android that one of the super-villains had brought along, proving that the Borg were running out of resources since they weren't making the usual drones.

Col. Smith was on the drones back, but wasn't able to subdue it, though part of the crab-like claws on it's hand had been broken off. Bond twitched on the floor, undergoing the infusion of the nano-probes in his body. Disregarding Smith on it's back, the odd drone proceeded to fire at the heroes around the TARDIS.

"We have the humanoid Gargoyle," said Vapor Man, as he and Meteor Man moved forward to avenge their teammate, Gravity Girl.

Young Samson looked to his lion Goliath and pointed at the Gargoyle canine Bronx. "Goliath, take him down, but be careful not to be infected.

The lion let out a mighty roar and charged forward, leaping over a blast of light from the Metallo drone. The lion pounced and swatted Bronx so hard he fell over. Bronx leaped back onto his feet, trying to bite at the massive lion. The lion got onto the Gargoyles back and bit the back of his neck to hold him still. But Bronx continued to twist his way free.

Vapor Man had converted his body to a gaseous form to get around the Gargoyle Goliath while his ally Meteor Man headed straight at him. Goliath was only in the first stage of being turned into a drone so did not possess the Borg weaponry, but that did not leave him defenseless.

Meteor Man increased the size of his fists until each was almost the size of his chest. He swung with his increased strength, but the Gargoyle batted his fist away. Vapor Man took the opportunity to solidify behind Goliath and sent a freezing vapor from his hands at him. Goliath stiffened for a moment, then caught Meteor Man's fist, and used the momentum to swing the native of Meteorus around so that he crashed into Vapor Man.

Taking down the large Gargoyle was not going to be as easy as they thought.

Samson was also having problems getting to close to his target. The cobbled together Sleestak drone was almost free from his struggle with Col. Smith now that Bond was under the control of the Collective and prying him off the drone's back. The lion Goliath, seeing his master's problem, shot power beams from his eyes the weapon of the drone.

"Good boy, Goliath!" Samson charged forward in order to strike before the drone could repair itself. His fist went out to make short work of the drone, but was caught by the super-strong android arm of the drone.

Just behind the drone, Smith was struggling with Bond on the rock floor. Trying to keep himself out of a chokehold, Smith looked up at Samson. "Send him on his merry way."

Samson was exchanging blows with the drone, but looked confused at what Smith had said until he seen how they were lined up. With a sudden kick to the chest, the drone was pushed backwards, where it tripped over Smith and Bond, sending it head over heels. Samson quickly followed up on freeing Col. Smith from Bond. With a follow-up kick, the Sleestak drone was rendered unconscious.

Samson picked up the struggling Bond, pinning his arms to his chest with only one of his arms, using his other hand to help Col. Smith to his feet.

"I'm getting too old for this," bemoaned the one-time colonel.

"Come on. The Doctor has an injection that will help your friend return to his usual self." To prove his point, he pointed over to where Kenny was attempting to use the Doctor's cure by injecting Bronx's tongue.

"What? Is he going to give that creature a root canal? Surely the Borg have a defense against that."

"Gargoyles have tough hides," he answered as explanation.

Smith nodded. "So does my ex-wife." Then to his surprise, he saw one of his men, Capt. Murdock, sitting on a strange-looking conveyer belt moving him toward the TARDIS along with his wife Ephiny, and several other injured people. "Captain, what's going on?"

"Hey, Colonel, we're having a baby!"

"Not here you're not!" he joked.

A pale pink blob morph out of the conveyer they were on, forming into a head with thick goggles and lots of black hair. "Congrats! My wife Penny and I just had our Baby Plas a few months ago. He's already bouncing all over the place."

"Colonel?" Murdock spoke in a wary voice.

"Easy, Murdock," said his long-time friend. "I see it, too. You're still sane. You're still married to an Amazon warrior from Ancient Greece and have a centaur step-son."

Murdock visible relaxed. "I was worried there for a moment." He glanced back as his wife shared a few words with Plastic Man. "Hey, you think I can talk B.A. into being a godfather?"

"I think his new fiancée can convince him," the colonel said with a smile.

Ephiny agreed. "Eponin does seem to have quite a bit of influence over him."

Smith chuckled as he limped the rest of the way to where Murdock was now being helped off the conveyor belt by two identical long haired red heads in the same costume.

Her mirth turned to grimaces as it was her turn to be helped off the conveyor belt, her injuries proved not to like standing up. "Right this way, miss," spoke one of the Multi-Man duplicates, as he and another copy of himself helped her follow Murdock and Smith inside the confines of the TARDIS.

"Hey, Doc, why not let us go out there and kick some cyborg butt," said one of the Planeteers.

"Wheeler," chided a young blond woman with a Russian accent. "The Doctor has told you he wants to wait to use us so that the Borg will not be ready for- Bozhe moi!"

"Linka! What is-" Gi, a Chinese member of the Planeteers, gapped as Apache Chief's wounded cry reverberated throughout the cavern.

The pipe sized tubules poured nano-probes into the chest of the gigantic superhero. Apache Chief had managed to pull himself away from the Dirge/Krang drone, but the damage had been done. Using his fading strength, Apache Chief hurled himself at his opponent, knocking them both to the ground, and more importantly, away from the others. Reaching up with a shaking hand, he smashed through the small, clear dome over the borgified Krang at the top of the Decepticon body. With a final squeeze, Krang's proto-matter body was squishing out through his fingers like Jell-O in a child's hand.

In the air above them, Birdboy circled around trying to see what had happened to Birdman and Isis. Space Ghost flew down to check on Apache Chief even though he knew there was nothing he could do.

"Look!" Kwame, the last member of the Planteers was not pointing to the toppled titans, but at yet another tragedy. The Metallo drone had managed to inject nano-probes into the Blue Falcon, and was trying to do the same to Coil-Man and Dynomutt who were still intertwined with him. Coil-Man was trying to work his way free while Dynomutt continued to attack, tightening the knot they were caught in. Super Samurai and the Justice League hero Cyborg hurried forward to try untangle them.

The bare-chested Latin American hero El Dorado teleported next to knotted up mess and motioned for the two heroes to take a step back. "Be quick to subdue the drone when I have removed our two comrades." Whipping his cape over the tangled trio, he pulled it away to reveal just the Metallo drone. Super Samurai and Cyborg needed no instructions as to what to do next. Both heroes struck the drone mercilessly, while El Dorado first shook out Coil-Man from his cape and then Dynomutt.

"Thanks, El Dorado," Dynomutt said, with a grin. A grin that quickly faded as he saw the pained, glazed over look in the Blue Falcon's face. "Oh no, BF! What do I do?"

"Take him to the Doctor," El Dorado calmly suggested.

"Doc Who? Oh, the Doctor! Right! He should be able to help. I hope." Wrapping an extended limb around his creator, Dynomutt rocketed the both of them over to the time-lord.

"That robotic menace almost got me turned into a cyborg zombie!" snapped Coil-Man.

"He made a mistake; can you not say you have done the same at some point?" asked the Latin American hero.

Coil-Man scratched at the back of his head, uneasily. "I suppose…"

El Dorado smiled. "Instead of arguing and passing around blame, let us help the others and keep them safe, yes? Are we not heroes after all?"

Coil-Man nodded with determination. "RRRRally Ho!" Coil-Man sprung forward while El Dorado flew behind him.

Zan tugged at his sister's elbow. "Jayna, look! Those drones had been standing still for so long; they're starting to move!"

The other half of the Exorian Wonder Twins could see that the effects of the Petrificus Totalus spell Harry Potter had used was wearing off quickly. "Should we tell the others?"

The others were mostly already engaged with the Dirge/minus Krang drone and Apache Chief. Web Woman had solidified a line around Apache Chief's legs to keep him off balance while her alien companion Spinner, a furry little insectoid creature, chattered it's support; the webline would only hold briefly before breaking, but it was slowing him down. Wonder Woman was trying the same trick on the Decepticon drone with her magic lasso. Cyborg was trying his sonic-blaster on the Dirge drone, but it had already adapted to that threat. Hercules and Super Samurai were hurling large boulders at the Dirge drone trying to find a weak spot to exploit.

"Everyone one else is busy!" he pointed out. "It's up to us!"

"Well then…Wonder Twins powers activate!" Their hands met as power was released within them."

Jan through her arms out, enjoying the moment of power about her. "Form of…a Korbal lightning beast!"

Instantly she became a creature that resembled a small pygmy elephant with a flatter head, smaller tusks, wider eyes, and a shorter truck. But it was a trunk that constantly emitted bursts of electricity – sometimes small sparks and other times like strikes of lightning for which it was named. "I'll see if I can knock out Apache Chief; you have handle those slow moving ones, right?"

"It's easy," he said, running in the direction of the drones. "Form of…a mini-glacier!"

The massive mound of ice formed around the slow moving drones. He had been told that the Borg could withstand the vacuum of outer space so he didn't think being trapped under a couple tons of ice would be life threatening for them. He took a moment to study his prisoners as well as to make sure they were alright (_He had accidently given Man-Bat severe frostbite. Batman had been less than pleased_). He could tell that six of his ten captives were of Sleestak origin, so he decided to look closer at the other four. He had to look past the Borg features, but soon he recognized them from the identification guide some telepath had put in all their heads. The first was Frank Parker, a time traveler of sorts. Terrus of the Legion of Super-Villains was a sentient swarm of alien insects huddled together a scarecrow-like outfit. The next man had a matted beard, He was Torch, a mercenary belonging to a group called the Dreadnoks, his specialty was with a modified flamethrower. Jack Bennett a.k.a. Bionic-1 was the last. He was a government agent who led a team of cyborgs, most of whom were members of his family. It was incredibly ironic that he and his family were all cyborgs before the Borg got a hold of them.

As he examined his captives, he felt a small pinprick. Several of them actually. Wondering what it was, he looked closer. As he studied Bionic-1, he traced the sensation to the drone's right hand. The tubules in that arm had partially extended, and was leaking the nano-probes into his icy form.

"Aaaahhhhh!" He forced himself to undergo a second change. "Shape of…an ice spider!" No longer a small glacier, he was literally an ice arachnid, and almost six feet tall. He hurried away, not waiting for the ten drones to come after him. He could feel the Borg nanites spreading throughout his new form. He was able to rationalize that his body being made of organic ice was slowing down the process, but that still meant he would be giving in to the inevitable.

A few of his eight legs stumbled as he tried to keep moving to his goal. The Doctor had a cure. He just had to get to the Doctor. But there were other voices trying to tell him what to do, too. And they were getting louder. They wanted him to do something to the Doctor. As he got closer and closer, he wasn't sure what he was going to do.

Another voice also began calling out to him, too. He was loud and determined, but it was so hard to hear him over the waves of other voices. But Zan didn't know who he was. And he was almost to the Doctor. Zan knew what he had to do then, even as he charged forward.

Pain, even though numbed by the voices, hit him, knocking him to his left and onto his back. A strange grayish creature ran at him; he was sure he should recognize it, but could do nothing as it reach out it's trunk and spoke.

"Wonder Twins powers deactivate!"

The Doctor jumped at him, jabbing the needle into his leg. He quickly stepped back, keeping an eye on his patient. "I wish we didn't need such a large amount for an injection; I'd have preferred to have a dart gun."

"He's going to be all right, right?" asked Zan's sister.

"Yes, yes, he will-"

"Doctor," said the insistent voice of the 6-inch tall Atom. "I still think we need to make an effort of trying your serum on Apache Chief."

"As I told you before," said the tired time-lord, "he's simply too big, and I don't have enough serum to affect him."

"Doctor!"

"What is it now?" he turned to face Jan, one of Space Ghost's sidekicks, with fear in her eyes.

She pointed almost straight up. "We found out what happened to Birdman and Isis."

On a small ledge in the ceiling of the great cavern, two drones of the individuals that used to be Kobra Khan and Webstor worked at reeling in Birdboy while Space Ghost and a magic carpet riding Merlin and Sinbad trying to safely rescue him. Moleculad and Kid Comet both tried to work their way to the Borg's latest inductees, only for Kobra Khan to spit venom and nanites at them. The ledge was narrow enough that once you knew where to look you could see the two missing heroes wrapped in a silken cocoon as they went through the Borg creating process.

"It's enough for me to take up jelly babies again," muttered the Doctor.

"What about them?" Jace, Space Ghost's other sidekick spoke up. He pointed over to a teenage boy and girl as they tried to calm their winged camel, Kaboobie, that they had brought. "You said you'd use them as a last resort. That's got to be about now."

The drones that Zan had tried to hold were still moving very slowly, even for a Borg drone, but they were taking steps in their direction and starting to aim as well.

The time-lord nodded reluctantly. "I'd prefer a more scientific method to defeat them, but then again that is just why I brought them. Hopefully, their ability to confound will work on the Borg as well as it did me."

Accepting the course of action, the Doctor marched over determined to have the matter done with as soon as possible. The two siblings saw him coming, and knew what he was about to ask. The dark haired boy tucked the brush he had been using on the camel away, even as the blond girl put away the bag of dates she had been letting the beast of burden snack on.

"Well, you two, it's time we bring in your big friend."

Chuck dusted off his hands against his shorts before reaching for his half of the ring. "Shazzan will make short work of those giants, and all the other enslaved people, too."

Nancy grinned. "An all-powerful genie is a hard force to stop. And magic trumps science every time."

The Doctor was affronted. "I would debate that premise with you, but time is running against us I'm afraid. Please, just summon your genie."

Chuck grinned. "All right, but I have to tell you, you are in for quite a sight. Once we put these two halves of a ring together, Shazzan will soon be mopping the floor with all these drones."

Nancy held her segment of the ring out in front of her. "Ready?"

Her brother patted around his body for a moment, as if searching for his part of the ring.

"That's not funny, Chuck."

He grinned at his sister anyway as he brought out his half with a grand flourish. "Shall we?"

They started to bring the two parts of the ring together when there was a flash of light.

Chuck looked confused as they hadn't activated the ring yet. Then looking down, he saw with horror that his right hand was now a blacked stump, instantly cauterized by a blast of energy from a Borg drone.

"Oh no, Chuck!" Nancy held her hands over her mouth in disbelief and shock. Jan knocked Chuck down even as the Doctor did the same to Nancy.

"A drone found an opening behind us!" announced Jace. He took to the air and hit the 'inviso-button' on his belt. He didn't think it would take the drone long to detect him, but he planned to make every second count.

The drone of Cobra Commander was already expecting this ploy as several of Space Ghost's enemies had been turned into drones; their knowledge belonged to the Collective, and thus to the Cobra Commander drone.

Jace had to do some aerial twists and turns to avoid being hit by the drone's weapon. Space Ghost's protégé couldn't get any closer. The young man wished yet again that Space Ghost would relent and allow he and Jan to have power bands like he wore. A destructo-ray, heat-ray, or any of the others produced by the power bands would have made short work of the drone.

But the Cobra Commander drone wasn't to be felled by any of those. Instead, it's destruction came from an angry, charging, winged camel. At eight feet away, Kaboobie spat, hitting the drone in the eyes, obscuring it's vision for just a moment. Then, the camel trampled the drone to death.

"Ew, now that messy." Jace checked the opening that the drone had come through. He didn't like what he saw one bit. He raced through the air back to where the others were trying to administer First Aid to Chuck. Jace didn't have time for that. Instead, he was on his hands and knees looking on the ground for something.

"Jace, what are you doing?" snapped Jan while Kwame wrapped his hastily removed shirt over the injury as a temporary bandage.

"Damn!" Jace looked up at them. "Found it."

"Found what?" Jan managed to ask, knowing from Jace's tone that it wasn't going to be good news.

"Chuck's half of the ring; it's melted to slag." He pointed to a small golden puddle on the ground. "That drone literally melted it away our best hope." He looked back to see that Kaboobie was still doing her stompy dance on the drone's corpse. He almost wanted to join in.

"It gets worse," he said.

"How's that?" asked the Doctor, as he motioned Kwame and Gi to take Chuck and Nancy back to the TARDIS.

He accepted Jan's help to get to his feet, then Blip flew and landed on his shoulder. "I saw a much larger group of-"

The wall of shelving and tabletops fell over, scaring away the winged camel and showing the threat that Jace was about to warn them about.

Drones walked out firing stun beams. Nancy was the first to be hit, and the Doctor caught her even as she fell. Jace and Jan froze as they recognized some of the drones – villains that the time-lord called the Master had rescued from their prison planet. With the short bulbous yellow head and pointed ears, it was easy to spot the Creature King. The green skinned Zeron, who sometimes called himself the Iceman, was also easy to spot. The android Cyclo had evidently been cut in half right down the middle and each side used to attach to another drone victim. The intergalactic hi-jacker known as Tansut still had most of his orange outfit on, but the left half of his body had been surgically attached to the right half of Cyclo. The other half of Cyclo had been put on the right half of Zorket whose mask had been removed.

"Kwame!" called out the time-lord. "We need a barricade so we can fall back safely!"

Kwame understood. Focusing on his ring of power, he made the rocky ground between them and the attacking drones to rise up as an obstacle between them.

That proved not to be an obstacle for one of the newer drones. To everyone's horror, Hawkgirl, in the first stages of become a drone flew over the rock wall and made to attack while her fellow drones began blasting away at the barricade.

**In order of appearance or mention**

Kenny – from the TV series Highlander

Zack Allen – from the TV series Babylon 5

Metallo – from DC Comics

Bronx – from the cartoon Gargoyles

Goliath – from the cartoon Gargoyles

The twelfth Doctor – from the TV series Doctor Who

Harry Potter – from the book series Harry Potter

Professor X – from the movie X-Men

Batman (Terry McGinnis) – from the cartoon Batman Beyond

Dirge – from the cartoon Transformers

Krang – from the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Apache Chief – from the cartoon The All-New Super-Friends Hour

Hellboy – from the movie Hellboy (mentioned only)

Batman (Bruce Wayne) – from the cartoon Super Friends

Robin – from the cartoon Super Friends

Batgirl – from the cartoon The New Adventures Of Batman

Superman – from the cartoon The New Adventures Of Superman

Flash – from the cartoon The Superman/Aquaman Hour Of Adventure

Green Lantern – from the cartoon The Superman/Aquaman Hour Of Adventure

Green Arrow – from the cartoon Super Friends

Black Canary – from DC Comics

Hawkman – from the cartoon The Superman/Aquaman Hour Of Adventure

Hawkgirl – from the cartoon The All-New Super-Friends Hour

Wonder Woman – from the cartoon Super Friends

Black Vulcan – from the cartoon The All-New Super-Friends Hour

Samurai – from the cartoon The All-New Super-Friends Hour

Speedy – from the cartoon Aquaman _'The Teen Titans'_

Aquaman – from the cartoon The Superman/Aquaman Hour Of Adventure

Aqualad – from the cartoon The Superman/Aquaman Hour Of Adventure

Doctor Mist – from DC Comics

Firestorm – from the cartoon Super-Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Hour

Wonder Girl – from the cartoon Aquaman _'The Teen Titans'_

Gravity Girl – from the cartoon Birdman & The Galaxy Trio _'The Galaxy Trio'_

Space Ghost – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Birdman – from the cartoon Birdman & The Galaxy Trio _'Birdman'_

Birdboy – from the cartoon Birdman & The Galaxy Trio _'Birdman'_

Isis – from the cartoon Tarzan & The Super 7 _'Freedom Force'_

Hercules – from the cartoon Space Sentinels as well as Tarzan & The Super 7 _'Freedom Force'_

Super Samurai – from the cartoon Tarzan & The Super 7 _'Freedom Force'_

Commissioner Gordon – from the cartoon The New Adventures Of Batman (mentioned only)

Frankenstein, Jr. – from the cartoon Frankenstein, Jr. & The Impossibles _'Frankenstein, Jr.'_

Coil-Man – from the cartoon Frankenstein, Jr. & The Impossibles _'The Impossibles'_

Buzz Conroy – from the cartoon Frankenstein, Jr. & The Impossibles _'Frankenstein, Jr.'_ (mentioned only)

Fluid-Man – from the cartoon Frankenstein, Jr. & The Impossibles _'The Impossibles'_

Mosquitor – from the cartoon She-Ra: Princess Of Power

Mercury – from the cartoon Space Sentinels (mentioned only)

Multi-Man – from the cartoon Frankenstein, Jr. & The Impossibles _'The Impossibles'_

Dominic Santini – from the TV series Airwolf

Plastic Man – from the cartoon The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show

Maya – from the TV series Space: 1999

Ma-Ti – from the cartoon Captain Planet And The Planeteers

Gaia – from the cartoon Captain Planet And The Planeteers (mentioned only)

Captain Planet – from the cartoon Captain Planet And The Planeteers (mentioned only)

Dora – from the cartoon Dora The Explorer

Boots – from the cartoon Dora The Explorer

Superstretch – from the cartoon Tarzan & The Super 7 _'Superstretch And Microwoman'_

Microwoman – from the cartoon Tarzan & The Super 7 _'Superstretch And Microwoman'_

Suchi – from the cartoon Captain Planet And The Planeteers

Blip – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Gleek – from the cartoon The All-New Super-Friends Hour

Plutem – from the cartoon Space Stars _'Teen Force'_

Glax – from the cartoon Space Stars _'Teen Force'_

Kid Flash – from the cartoon Aquaman _'The Teen Titans'_

Dynomutt – from the cartoon The Scooby-Doo/ Dynomutt Hour

Blue Falcon – from the cartoon The Scooby-Doo/ Dynomutt Hour

Samson – from the cartoon Young Samson & Goliath

Goliath – from the cartoon Young Samson & Goliath

Kid Comet – from the cartoon Space Stars _'Teen Force'_

Atom – from the cartoon Super Friends

Elektra – from the cartoon Space Stars _'Teen Force'_

Col. John 'Hannibal' Smith – from the TV series The A-Team

James Bond – from the James Bond movies (pick your favorite Bond actor)

blue plastic android belonging to Garguax – from DC Comics

Vapor Man – from the cartoon Birdman & The Galaxy Trio _'The Galaxy Trio'_

Meteor Man – from the cartoon Birdman & The Galaxy Trio _'The Galaxy Trio'_

Capt. H.M. "Howling Mad" Murdock – from the TV series The A-Team

Ephiny – from the TV series Xena: Warrior Princess

Penny – from the cartoon The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show (mentioned only)

Baby Plas – from the cartoon The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show (mentioned only)

Sgt. Bosco "_B.A._" Baracus – from the TV series The A-Team

Eponin – from the TV series Xena: Warrior Princess (mentioned only)

Wheeler – from the cartoon Captain Planet And The Planeteers

Linka – from the cartoon Captain Planet And The Planeteers

Kwame – from the cartoon Captain Planet And The Planeteers

Cyborg – from the cartoon The SuperPowers Team: Galactic Guardians

El Dorado – from the cartoon The All-New Super-Friends Hour

Zan – from the cartoon The All-New Super-Friends Hour

Jayna – from the cartoon The All-New Super-Friends Hour

Web Woman – from the cartoon Tarzan & The Super 7 _'Web Woman'_

Spinner – from the cartoon Tarzan & The Super 7 _'Web Woman'_

a Korbal lightning beast – from DC Comics _'Legion of Super-Heroes'_

Man-Bat – from DC Comics (mentioned only)

Frank Parker – from the TV series Seven Days

Terrus – from DC Comics

Torch – from the cartoon G.I. Joe

Bionic-1 – from the cartoon Bionic Six

Kobra Khan – from the cartoon He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe

Webstor – from the cartoon He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe

Merlin – from the cartoon Tarzan & The Super 7 _'Freedom Force'_

Sinbad – from the cartoon Tarzan & The Super 7 _'Freedom Force'_

Moleculad – from the cartoon Space Stars _'Teen Force'_

Jace – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Kaboobie – from the cartoon Shazzan

Chuck – from the cartoon Shazzan

Nancy – from the cartoon Shazzan

Shazzan – from the cartoon Shazzan (mentioned only)

Cobra Commander – from the cartoon G.I. Joe

The Master – from the TV series Doctor Who

Creature King – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Zeron – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Cyclo – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Tansut – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Zorket – from the cartoon Space Ghost

**AUTHOR's NOTES**

_I mentioned Dr. Mist and the Global Guardians mainly because the group consisted of many foreign heroes that the heroes met and worked with in the Super Friends comic book series. Later they were introduced into the main continuity of DC Comics in the early 80's. Eventually, three of the characters joined the Justice League – Ice, Fire, and the Tasmanian Devil (not the Warner Brothers version)._

_I grouped the Super Friends from the late 60's to the 80's because they meshed together the best. I'm only listing the four heroes from Super Friends because I like to believe everyone already known the rest of them. I'm also using the Teen Titans from the 60's because they have a better connection to the Super Friends._

**Super Friends** (1973-1977), **The All-New Super Friends Hour** (1977-1978), **Challenge Of The SuperFriends** (1978-1979), **SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show** (1984), **The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians** (1985)

**Apache Chief** - By speaking the word "Eh-neeek-chock" ("Big Man"), Apache Chief could grow to unlimited sizes.

**Black Vulcan** - His powers include the ability to emit electricity from his hands, as well as fly by charging his lower body with energy.

**Samurai** - The ability to control the wind is the most frequently used of Samurai's powers. All of Samurai's body (except sometimes his head) becomes a powerful tornado of wind that allows him to travel at superspeed and use his winds to pick up objects or blow them around. In later episodes of the series, he would frequently appear with only his lower body transformed into a tornado.

**El Dorado** – He used his cape to teleport, generated illusions, telepathy, some degree of super strength and the ability to fly.

**Aquaman **_**'Teen Titans'**_ (1968) - Aquaman's sidekick Aqualad, Flash's partner Kid Flash, boy bowman Speedy, and adolescent Amazon Wonder Girl, teamed up together as The Teen Titans

**Birdman & The Galaxy Trio** (1967-1969) –

**Birdman** - An ordinary human endowed by the sun god Ra with the ability to shoot solar rays from his fists and project "solar shields" to defend himself against attacks. He was recruited by a top-secret government agency, Inter-Nation Security, and now works full-time fighting crime, assisted by his eagle sidekick Avenger. In addition to the abilities he received from Ra, Birdman also possesses the power of flight, thanks to the giant wings which sprout from his back. His sole weakness is that he must periodically recharge his super powers through exposure to the sun's rays. His trademark is his battle cry of "_Biiiiirdman_!" when he goes into battle.

**Birdboy** - The two first met when Birdman happened upon a shipwreck, of which Birdboy was the only apparent survivor. Since the boy was near death from exposure, Birdman transferred some of his own super energy to him, reviving him and giving powers similar to Birdman's, and he went on to aid him in several episodes. Birdboy lacks the natural feathered wings sported by Birdman, however, and is only able to fly with the assistance of the mechanical wings strapped to his back.

The **Galaxy Trio** is a group of three extraterrestrial superheroes, Vapor Man, Meteor Man, and Gravity Girl, who patrol space in their cruiser _Condor One_ maintaining order and fighting evildoers in the name of the Galactic Patrol law enforcement agency.

**Vapor Man** - He has the ability to transform part or all of his body into gaseous form (a power shared by at least some residents of his home planet of Vaporus), enabling him to fly, escape from physical bonds, and squeeze through very small spaces, as well as producing various forms of "vapor" (such as "freeze vapor") from his hands.

**Meteor Man** - A native of the planet Meteorus. Meteor Man is distinguished by his ability to increase or decrease the size of any part of his body. He gains superhuman strength in any limb that he chooses to enlarge.

**Gravity Girl** - She has the ability to bend the laws of gravity to her will, allowing her to fly and lift very heavy objects with her mind. The daughter of the king of the planet Gravitas, she left her luxurious home and life of privilege at an early age to fight crime with the Galactic Patrol and was subsequently assigned to the Galaxy Trio team, with whom she has served ever since.

**Frankenstein, Jr. & The Impossibles** (1966-1968)

**Frankenstein Jr.** was a giant robot constructed by a boy-genius to fight crime. The Impossibles were undercover agents disguised as a rock group.

**Multi-Man** - can create identical copies of himself.

**Coil-Man** - can form into a super-springy coil.

**Fluid-Man** can transform his body into any fluid.

**Space Stars **_**'Teen Force'**_ (1981)

_**Teen Force**_ segment focused on three superhumanly gifted young students who hail from an unknown alternate universe which is located beyond the confines of the mysterious Black Hole X, which serves as a gateway into the universe

**Kid Comet** - fair-skinned man in an orange suit, possesses tremendous levels of superhuman speed, enabling him move at speeds exceeding the speed of light and even turn into a human comet.

**Moleculad** - a young black man in a green suit, has the power to change the molecular structure of any object, even his own body.

**Elektra** - a tall redhead woman in a silver suit, had mental powers including telekinesis and telepathy.

Accompanying them are a pair of diminutive blue-skinned aliens named **Plutem** and **Glax**, also known as the **Astromites**. They have no real powers, but are comic relief.

**Tarzan and the Super 7** (1978-1980) - Separate installments of several groups of adventurers. Including episodes featured Web Woman, The Freedom Force (Isis, Super-Samurai, Sinbad, Merlin, and Hercules), Micro Woman and Super Stretch.

**Web Woman** - Kelly saves the life of an alien insectoid when he is swept into a raging river during a thunderstorm. In gratitude, the alien presents her with a mysterious ring, which grants her the powers of the entire insect kingdom. The alien proves to be an agent of the mysterious entity named Scarab, the guardian of the space station Citadel 7. Web Woman's outfit consists of a pink leotard with a mask, boots, and a belt. She has a variety of weapons, such as a webline from her utility belt, and the ring can produce sleeping gas, an energy beam that solidifies into a spider web for ensnaring enemies and a force field of energized webbing. She is aided in her missions for Scarab by a furry little insectoid-like alien named Spinner, who is often used for comic relief.

**Superstretch And Microwoman** - On the surface Chris and Christy Cross were just your average suburban couple. But when they sprang into action, Chris could take virtually any shape (such as a plane, a robot, a rubber ball, a perfect double of a villain, etc.). Christy could, as her name implied, shrink to microscopic size.

**Freedom Force** - Headquartered in the sand swept Valley of Time five legendary heroes also defend humanity using their awesome powers to defeat magical menaces rampaging robots and mythological threats.

**Merlin** – a much younger looking version of the legendary wizard.

**Sinbad** – the legendary thief of Bagdad.

**Super Samurai** – Toshi could transform himself into the incredibly powerful Super Samurai form, a large armored being that is able to fly.

**Isis** - While on an archeological dig, high school teacher discovered an amulet that once belonged to an Egyptian queen. Putting it on, she found that it magically granted superhuman powers to the wearer. She stole the find, and decided to become the superheroine Isis.

**Hercules** – In an earlier series called **Space Sentinels** (1977-1978), Hercules was kidnapped as a youth and taken by aliens to another world where he, and others like him, where trained and given special powers, before being returned to his homeworld to watch over the well-being of his people, as part of a group of Sentinels. Later, Hercules was recruited to be part of Isis' Freedom Force.

**The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show** (1979-1981) - Plastic Man, his girlfriend Penny, and his Polynesian sidekick Hula-Hula travel the world and are given their assignments from the Chief to stop any threat to the world. In the second season Plastic Man reciprocates Penny's crush on him and the two marry. The marriage produces a son who has the same powers as Plastic Man and spawns a lighter series of episodes featuring "Baby Plas" doing things such as saving his friends from neighborhood bullies. Plastic Man can stretch to incredible lengths and shape himself into practically anything.

**Young Samson & Goliath** (1967) - Samson was a young boy who rode a motor scooter with his dog Goliath. Whenever trouble surfaced, Samson would slam his magic bracelets together above his shoulders to explosively transform into a more biblical and mightier version of himself. For added help, Samson would slam his bracelets again toward Goliath transforming the pooch into a massive lion. In lion form Goliath could fire laser beams from his eyes and leap incredible distances in a single bound.

**The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour** _'Dynomutt And The Blue Falcon'_ (1976-1978) - The Blue Falcon, a blue-caped and -cowled superhero and his robotic Doberman, Dynomutt Dog Wonder, not unlike the heroic ilk of Batman and Robin but with a more comical twist. Dynomutt is very strong, has extendible limbs, and has more gadgets built into him that a dozen Swiss Army knives.

**Shazzan** (1967-1969) – After finding the two halves of a magic ring, Chuck and Nancy are transported back to the fabled land of the Arabian Nights where they travel on Kaboobie, a flying winged camel, as they serch for the ring's rightful owner. Whenever trouble comes, the teen siblings join the pieces of the ring together, and the genie Shazzan is summoned to help them with his magical powers from out of this world.

**Captain Planet And The Planeteers** (1990-1996) - Seeing the Earth in its profound environmental peril, Gaia, goddess of the Earth, summons five kids from around the world to become the Planeteers, an opposing force to fight back and educate others in the need to be environmentally responsible. To accomplish that task, each kid is given a magic ring that each has a power of earth, wind, water, fire and heart. When the threat they face is too big for them to face, they can combine and amplify their powers to create Captain Planet, who has the power to stop catastrophic environmental disasters himself, while the Planeteers contribute with the things anyone can and should do to help.


	50. Chapter 50

**A Tangled Web Part 8**

**Chapter 50**

Space Ghost fired his freeze ray at Isis, effectively encasing her in a thick layer of ice. That also saw her plummeting down to the rocky cavern floor. But he had anticipated that.

"Got her, Space Ghost!" called out Elektra who had been hovering a dozen feet below the magical heroine turned drone. The redheaded member of Teen Force held onto the Borg infected Isis with her telekinesis as she adjusted the direction they were going.

Her teammate, Kid Comet, flew up to a stop next to her. "What are you going to do with her, tuck her away somewhere where she won't melt?"

She rolled her eyes at his attempt at humor. "I'll take her straight to the Doctor to get her treated. See if you can capture Birdman by the time I get back," she said as he floated away with her prize.

"How come I get stuck with all the hard tasks?" he moaned. A hit in the back by one of Birdman's solar ray blasts quickly returned him to the situation at hand. "That-that hurt." He turned around in anger, watching as his partner, Moleculad chased after the stage one drone. "Bird-drone's going down!"

He accelerated forward, having to veer away when an obstacle in the form of Birdboy flew into his path.

"It's not his fault! The Borg is making him attack us!" yelled out the frantic sidekick, after seeing Kid Comet's look of murderous rage.

"Easy, kid. I'm just going to capture him. Then we can take him down to the Doctor to get set straight, okay?"

Birdboy's look of terror never left his face. "It's just…Birdman took me in after my father went missing after a shipwreck. I keep insisting that we search for him and Birdman helps me. He never tries to tell me that my father is most li…most likely dead. He's all I got in the world."

Kid Comet really wished Elektra was here for this. She was so much better at handling things like this. "It's…we'll try, okay."

OoOoO

Struggling to stay on the small ledge tucked in a small alcove high in the cavern ceiling, Sinbad managed to extract his magic sword from the serpentine corpse of the drone of Kobra Khan before it fell below.

The infamous sailor grinned, before looking over his shoulder. "Mine is down, how is yours coming along, old friend?"

Merlin, looking much younger than most would expect him to be, let out a sigh, knowing that his friend would be constantly reminding him that he had taken down his foe first. "He's proving to be surprisingly troublesome." He sent out another blast of arcane energy, missing again. "The thing appears to be part spider the way it walks around on the ceiling; it's almost as if he can sense when I'm aiming at him. I can't get a good shot at it from this ledge."

"Is that all?" laughed Sinbad. "Then it is a good thing that you know someone with a magic carpet!" He rolled out the enchanted rug in the air next to the ledge and leapt onto it. Merlin turned and did likewise.

"Now let's see where the fiend has moved to." The fabled sailor's eyes scanned up at the stony rooftop that held many dark shadows.

"Incoming!" came out a call to their left. Moleculad was right on Birdman's tail, and Kid Comet and Birdboy were quickly catching up.

Sinbad quickly guided the carpet away from possible collision while Merlin tried sending a spell at the Borg controlled winged hero, missing yet again.

"Please remind me, your spells do hit their target from time to time, yes?" Sinbad asked as the two of them watched the others fly away.

"Maybe I should start practicing on you?" Merlin returned.

The sailor threw his head back and laughed. "Maybe you-"

Sudden movement from the shadows was all that alerted him.

The Webstor drone had jumped at them. Sinbad pulled Merlin to the side and steered his carpet to the side, but the creature managed to snag an edge with its got hand.

"Fowl creature!" Merlin managed to keep from falling off the carpet with the help of his friend, but the carpet was still spiraling out of control.

"Get it off!" shouted Sinbad, as he tried to regain control of the magic carpet.

Merlin was about to retort, asking how he should do that, when a beam of light blasted a hole through the bottom of the carpet, just missing the two of them.

Sinbad made the call, and he knew it was a risky one. He could see where the Webstor drone's bluish gray hand held fast to the edge of the carpet, with that in mind, he swung his sword, neatly slicing that piece of material off.

The sudden release of weight nearly upturned them. The loss of a section of the enchanted fabric was also paramount. The flying carpet still flew, but barely responded to any commands they gave it.

"Do you think it can be repaired?" Sinbad asked gravely, his lips white as he tried to control their descent.

"After this is all over, we will give it our best effort," answered the magician.

OoOoO

"Are you sure this is safe?"

The long haired redhead looked out into the chaos that was happening in the larger cavern. "We can't stay here."

A duplicate of the redhead agreed. "That's for sure. The safest place right now is in the TARDIS."

A nearby woman shuddered. "It's a gauntlet."

Willie reached over to his mate, putting his hand on her shoulder. "We can do this, Thelma."

Juliet Parrish sucked in her fear, and nodded. "Right now the drones are focusing on the heroes. If we hurry we can get Elizabeth right past them."

Behind her, two of the Multi-Man duplicates were already bringing the unconscious body of Elizabeth Maxwell. She looked to a five-inch tall black woman standing near the opening of the smaller chamber of rock they occupied. "Uh," she began, before balking. "Listen, can I call you something other than Microwoman. It just seems too strange to call anyone something like that."

The miniature heroine let her amusement show in her smile. "Let me guess, no superheroes back in your home reality, right?"

Juliet took her sense of humor as a good sign. "As far as I know all we have are aliens – some good, some far from it."

"Well, since you aren't from my reality and aren't likely to go there, why don't you just call me Christy."

"Thanks," she said, somewhat relieved. "Listen, your friend, uh, the conveyor belt."

Christy was now even more amused. "Superstretch is my husband; you can just call him Chris."

"Thanks again." Juliet was surprised at having such a hard time calling these people these ridiculous names, especially during such a serious situation. "I think if we could have your shape shifting husband stay a conveyor belt, but be lower to the floor, I think he and those he's transporting would be less of a target."

"Good idea," Microwoman said, and she jumped over to the conveyor belt. "You here that, Chris?"

"Sounds good to me," came a voice for the conveyor belt. "Just keep loading everyone up and me and Plastic Man will get them to the TARDIS."

"Can you move them any faster?" Juliet managed to say.

"Not with them being wounded," came the voice again. "Trust me; I'm going as fast as I dare."

"Next already!" Zack Allen snapped from his position as sentry. "Willie, you first. Then Elizabeth. Thelma will go next. Then, you, doc," he said, nodding to Juliet.

"I can run," Juliet responded.

"This Superstretch-Plastic Man belt is faster and you'd be less of a target zipping down this way," pointed out Allen.

Juliet knew he was right. But the thought of just lying down and being moved along on a belt, without the ability to duck for cover. She'd been in a lot of serious battles; her need of self-preservation was fighting her in this. It didn't help that putting people on the conveyers reminded her all too much of the Human processing centers that the Visitors had built.

"Willie, time to do it," Microwoman called out waving him to go.

The Visitor swallowed nervously, then hopped on and made himself as flat as possible.

"Now Elizabeth," Juliet said, prompting the two Multi-Man copies to place Elizabeth Maxwell, a Human-Visitor hybrid, on the living conveyor belt.

"Thelma."

The female Visitor hesitated only for a moment before diving on the conveyor belt, burying her head under her arms even as she was zipped away.

"Okay, doc, it's your—Wait, something is going on!"

Juliet looked down the line of the conveyor. Superstretch and Plastic Man had lined themselves up so that it was a near a straight line as they could get with only a few curbs around some large stalagmites and debris. People were scrambling inside the TARDIS.

Something crunched loudly into the cavern wall above their entrance spilling rocks to fall down.

"Move in!" Dominic Santini barreled through the falling rocks, taking a few hits, but managed to grab Microwoman in one hand and shove Juliet clear before being struck in the shoulder and knocked to the floor, half buried.

"Dom!"

"Chris!"

"What's happening?" asked a man in a Colonial flight uniform.

The light from the glowing crystals embedded in the walls slowly pushed through the settling dust. Groans and shifting of rubble was only interrupted by Microwoman shouts to her husband on the other side of the cave-in.

"We got to clear this! Chris! Chris, can you hear me!" She had grown to her regular size and was chucking rocks left and right to clear a path.

"Hey! You almost hit me!" Albert Gibson was trying to stand on the rocks that now littered the floor, an IV line still connecting him to the blond Nikita who was only now sitting up.

"We need to assess ourselves, and then we can do something about the cave-in blocking the entrance." Nikita glanced around hoping someone would take it from there, taking over the situation.

Juliet caught a hold of Microwoman's arm. "Christy."

The heroine froze, and took in a deep breath, despite the dust in the air. "I know. We need to pull things together in here." She let out a deep sigh. "I know that Chris is very resilient thanks to his superpowers; it just, well, you saw how crazy it was out there. And now my husband is out there in that and I'm stuck in here."

Juliet nodded and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Sometimes all you can do is work with what you have, and pray that that which you don't have any control over works out."

She looked back her. "You pray?"

Juliet gave a half shrug. "When you have alien lizards firing ray guns at you day after day, who want to put you and the rest of the world on their dinner plate, you start to pick up the knack of praying."

"I'll bet."

Those unconscious patients had been lined up near the entrance for a quicker evacuation. Dr. Stephen Franklin had thrown himself of his patient, the Visitor called Philip, in an attempt to keep dust and rocks from out of his nearly closed surgical sight. Boxey had blocked some of the rolling rubble with his body to keep the still form of Constable Benton Fraser from being buried, Diefenbaker staying close, whining softly. Dr. Sarah Chambers and Lt. John Matheson were arguing about how to handle their invisible patient, Bobby Hobbes, who was now slightly outlined by the rock dust. Amanda King-Stetson was also running a check over her husband, Lee Stetson, but everything seemed fine.

Jack O'Neill pulled Angus MacGyver out from where he was half buried under mostly small rocks with the help of a Chimpanzee with an injured arm. They coughed and wiped the dust away from their eyes and noses.

"Ah man!" Albert Gibson rubbed his forehead. "I think I must have hit my head hard. I'm seeing double."

O'Neill and MacGyver groaned at the teasing about them being doubles from different universes. The Multi-Man doubles just grinned having long ago become used to such comments. Instead of voicing their annoyance, they chose to turn their attention to pulling the tied-up drone of Samantha Carter out from under the small rocks.

"This is no time for jokes!" snapped Nikita. She had been in enough life and death situations to know that they needed to all pull together if they were going to have any chance at all of surviving.

"Be nice to me or I'll cut you off at the tap," Gibson said, referring to the IV line leading from him to her.

"Here!" she snarled, pulling the IV from her arm. "I've had my fill of you."

"Hey! Hey!" He quickly pinched the IV line to keep from bleeding to death. "That's a precious commodity you spilt there. You can't just pick this quality of blend at any blood bank. You-"

"Do you ever shut up?"

"Not according to my ex-wives." He gave her a grin and wink.

Nikita moved a little away from him before sitting down. She took in a couple of deep breaths hoping that would ease her dizziness from blood loss.

"You all right?"

She looked up to see one of the doubles. Since he wasn't dressed in a military fashion, she assumed he was MacGyver. "He's been driving me crazy for a while now."

"You're bleeding," he said, pointing to where she had pulled out the IV line. "Here, let me put something over that."

He put a torn piece of cloth over the bleeding spot, then taped it down with duct tape from his bag. She nodded her thanks having had to use similar bandage material a few times before.

Deciding to check on others, MacGyver noticed Dr. Juliet Parrish examining the battered form of Dominic Santini. "Is he dead?"

"Um, no, just stunned. He just needs a few minutes I think."

"I could help you get him somewhere more comfortable."

"No, no, that's all right, thank you," she said, profusely. She tried to keep MacGyver from getting a good look at Dominic, or else he would know that the man really was dead. The problem would really begin if everyone saw him come back to life again as she had seen earlier. No, it was better that they not know. But it put her in an awkward position as she didn't know how long it would be before Dominic would come alive again. It was not something she looked forward to explaining.

"Christy!"

Everyone turned to the pile of rocks blocking the entrance. Between the spaces in the rock poured out the stretchable form of Superstretch.

"Chris! You're all right!" Microwoman jumped forward and grabbed a hold of her husband in a tight embrace. "I was imagining the worst, baby."

"I hate to interrupt you two love birds," Bill Maxwell said while holding a blood-stained cloth to his head. "But what the hell happened out there."

"That Decepticon robot the Borg took over, Dirge, he fell against the cavern wall and slid down it brining down a lot of rock."

Microwoman had been checking to see that he was alright when she noticed that his left leg was still back on the other side of the rocks. "Chris, why don't you bring your leg thru?"

He managed a weak smile. "It's kinda pinned down. I tried prying it loose before coming to check on you, but it was no-go." He brushed some of the rock dust off her afro. "I'll go back and ask one of those super-strong guys in a minute. I just wanted to-"

He looked back at his leg. "Looks like one of them may have found where my leg is already."

"How was the fighting going?" asked Zack Allen. "It they took out that big robot, that must have turned things in our favor, right?"

The stretchable sleuth eyed his leg again. "I really didn't take the time to YEOW!"

Microwoman looked at her husband with alarm. "What is it, Chris?"

"Something just bit me, no, something stabbed me!" He grit his teeth in agony. "Feels like fire coursing up my leg."

"It's the Borg nano-probes!" Everyone glanced at Amanda King-Stetson, who was now covering her mouth in horror.

"She's right," Nikita said. "He's going to turn into one of them. Just like her." She pointed to Samantha Carter, who was still in the first stage of being a drone. "Except we can't tie him up. He'd slip out of anything we tied him up in."

"Right." Boxey raised up his weapon and pointed it directly at Superstretch's head.

"No!" Microwoman placed herself in the way. "Are you out of your mind? Nobody's killing my husband!"

Superstretch held his eye's slammed shut as he tried to stop the pain. "I-I think I'm slowing it down."

"There has to be something we can do." Dr. Sarah Chambers looked around the small cavern they were trapped within. "Something that doesn't involve killing this man that was just helping us save these others as well as ourselves."

Maxwell let out a sigh. "The problem is we don't really have the time to figure out another solution."

"H-he might be right, baby," Chris Cross turned to look at his wife. The pain was already causing him to shake. "It's-it's up to my knee already."

"I'm not letting you die on me," Christy Cross returned.

"I don't think we have any other choice."

Juliet felt a tugging on her sleeve, and looked down at an awake Dominic Santini. "Dom?"

From somewhere, he pulled out a short sword. "Here. For his leg."

She stared at him while understanding slowly made its way through her brain. "Oh, I see."

She let stay there as he was still recovering and half buried. "We don't have to kill him." She held up the sword for the other to see.

"What are you suggesting we do with that?" asked Gibson. "Somehow pin him to the rock wall like some kind of insect display?"

Zack waved Gibson away. "I get it. She wants us to amputate the leg." Without thinking about it, he reached down to where his leg prosthetic was, feeling around at where it was damaged, making it difficult to even limp about on.

"Then he won't become a drone," Juliet spoke out the horrific conclusion.

Microwoman's eyes were wide with terror and disbelief. "You can't be serious!" She turned and wrapped her arms around her husband. "I won't let you do it."

"B-baby." Superstretch tightened his arms around his wife. "Pro-bably the only way. 'sides, I can-can just reshape my body to form a wh-whole leg."

Christy Cross looked up at her husband with tears in her eyes. "I don't know what to do."

"Have to do it. Other-" He paused to suck in a deep breath of air. "Otherwise I become o-one of those cyborg zombies. The Borg w-would have me fight everyone in here. M-might even kill someone. Even y-you." Even through the pain, he managed a sigh. "Better the c-c-cost of my leg than you."

She didn't answer. Instead she sobbed into his chest.

Bill Maxwell cleared his throat. "Now that we have that settled, which of you doctors is going to do the prescribed treatment?"

"Why a doctor?" asked Dr. Sarah Chambers.

"So that the leg gets chopped as efficiently as possible," he went on to explain, ignoring the shudder that his words brought the room.

Reluctantly, Dr. Stephen Franklin raised his hand. "I suppose that I could do it." He walked up slowly and took the blade that Juliet offered him. "But I don't know about the sword; I've never handled on before."

Jack O'Neill took the weapon from him. "Give me that. You tell me where, and I'll cut. After that, he's all yours."

Franklin nodded. "Right, thank you." He was surprised how relieved he was having that task taken from him. He glanced back to Dr. Sarah Chambers who was gathering the medical supplies they were going to need right after the amputation.

"Hurry!" Superstretch shouted.

Franklin showed on the elongated leg where O'Neill should make the slice, meanwhile the superhero couple held each other tight with their eyes closed.

"All right then," Sam said, as he raised the sword high about him, while most of the others in the chamber either turned away or stared in horrified fascination.

A corner in the room covered with small boulders seemed to burst away as a large eight-foot-tall drone with long orangish-red hair covering his body not covered by Borg apparatus, and two fat, foot-long, curved horns on the top of his head, turned to the front of his head. He almost resembled an enlarged orangutan with a pot belly. The creature's right hand and feet were massive and had three digits each, while his left arm had been replaced with the Borg equivalent to cannon. His ears hung long like those of a hound dog's. His mouth was so wide it spread nearly halfway around his head, and two large bottom canine teeth that protruded in a upside-down vampire-ish look.

"Noooo!" bellowed the creature.

Boxey was the first to respond, firing at the fast, lumbering drone. The drone's body shields were already blocking the energy beams, and he knocked Boxey and one of the Multi-men out of his way like they were gnats.

Diefenbaker jumped in front of the drone, barking and growling; he didn't come any closer, but his hackles were raised.

The drone stopped just shy of five feet from Chris and Christy Cross, and looked around at the others shyly. "Ludo… free. Ludo not drone… not Borg." He seemed to paused in thought, before adding, "Ludo…is Ludo again."

O'Neill held the sword ready to attack the new intruder, but wasn't sure it was necessary. Yes, the intruder looked like a cross between a orangutan and a gargoyle, in addition to a very intimidating size, but there was a softness in the remaining eye of the creature that spoke of gentleness, something that shone past the Borg pallor and paraphernalia.

"Wait!" John Matheson eased in front of O'Neill while facing Ludo. As a telepath he could feel the anxiety of the other's in the chamber, as well as the fear and concern coming from this…Ludo. "I can tell that he's not like the others. He's not under the influence of the Borg Queen. His mind is his own; though it is rather…simple."

A nearby Gorilla hefted his damaged rifle ready to use it like a club, but stayed his hand for now. The Minbari Ranger took a similar tactic, remaining alert and ready. They may have been injured, but they were not going to be turned into a drone. At least not without a serious fight.

"Was he just hiding under all those rocks the whole time we were in here?" Mrs. Amanda King-Stetson gave voice to the question they were all starting to wonder about.

Matheson held his hands out, palms facing the massive drone, hoping that Ludo would take that as a peaceful gesture. "Alright, Ludo, you were obviously tucked away in that corner and covered with small boulders. Why?"

Ludo looked at him, then down at his feet as he thought about his answer. "Ludo was free. Ludo not want to not be free again." He glanced up again shamefully. "Ludo scared…hid."

"How'd he become free?" asked O'Neill, thinking of Samantha Carter.

"Well?" Matheson asked, looking Ludo in the eye.

The large former drone let out a heavy sigh. "Ludo not know. Just free. Some others, too."

"Others?"

The large cyborg creature nodded. "Others. Some scaley men. An evil Imp. A woman fighter. A man hunter." He tilted his head as if listening to something the others couldn't. "A new one now. Young like Sarah. Smart. Lives in boat underwater. Lucas."

Microwoman's scream jarred everyone. Being on edge, the Gorilla swung his rifle at Ludo, only to be pushed back by one of the former drone's long arms. Before he could make a second attempt, the Minbari Ranger was able to hold the Gorilla off until he realized that Ludo was not the reason for the scream.

Christy Cross held her husband tight, weeping onto his shoulder, as the tell-tale grey nano-probes of the Borg etched their way across his features. "It's too late! It's too late! He's lost to me now!"

Ludo shuffled forward slowly and as unthreatening as someone his size could be, though most of them stepped back, including the wolf, Diefenbaker. "Not too late. Ludo can undo."

Juliet looked up at the strange cyborg creature. "You can fix this?"

Ludo regarded her for a moment then nodded. "Those free…, the woman fighter – Xena; the man hunter – Lord Bowler; and the baldy man – Lex; they tell Ludo how to fix."

Chris Cross a.k.a. Superstretch stood up in a rigid manner. "We are the Borg. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile."

Microwoman backed away from her possessed husband, stumbling into Juliet.

"So, tell me," Maxwell began, speaking to the Superstretch drone. "In all the years you've been assimilating people, has anyone bought into your whole '_resistance is futile_' spiel?"

The new drone paused for a second, as if thinking about the question, before responding. "Your inquiry is irrelevant. Resistance is futile." Then the drone turned to Ludo. "You will be returned to the Collective. You will comply." That said, the Superstretch drone raised his arms, shaped them like two large needles and sent them hurdling forward. One stabbed into Bill Maxwell's gut, causing him to fall to his knees in shock and pain. The other one went straight at Ludo only to bounce back from his personal force field.

Angus MacGyver took the opportunity to tackle the elongated arm that had attacked Ludo. But instead of knocking it to the floor, the versatile limb whipped around him like a python, holding him tight.

"Not…exactly…as planned," he managed to say right before he felt a piecing pain in his shoulder as the Superstretch drone shared some of his supply of nano-probes with him. Jack O'Neill was trying to pull him free, as were several of the Multi-Man duplicates. MacGyver tried to tell them that it was too late, that he was soon going to be one with the Borg, but couldn't even find the strength to do that.

The Gorilla and Minbari Ranger were trying to fight off the other arm that had finished with Maxwell and was now trying to go after them.

Microwoman screamed at her husband to stop, yet his face showed no signs of having heard her. Or any of the other screaming and yelling people. Not until a large energy charge rang out, blinding many of them for a few seconds.

When their eyes cleared they could see Ludo standing over the stunned Superstretch, the two tubules that extended from behind his enormous knuckles were injecting his nano-probes into the fallen hero's arm. "All better soon," Ludo said as a means of explaining.

The others took the opportunity to restrain those recently put under the Borg's control until Ludo give them the cure as well, including Samantha Carter.

Finally, Superstretch, Angus MacGyver, Samantha Carter and Bill Maxwell were laid out next to the other unconscious patients, their complexions slowly returning to normal. Christy Cross sat next to her husband, her legs crossed as she held his hand.

"Anybody got any ideas on how we get to the TARDIS now?" snapped Zack Allen, his tone frustrated, but demanding an answer if anyone had one.

Most looked at the rocks that blocked their way to freedom. It was even more frustrating that they could sometimes hear the sounds of battles being fought on the other side.

Dominic Santini groaned as he sat up. His shoulder had almost completely healed now thanks to his Immortal abilities. He nodded his thanks to Juliet Parrish for keeping his secret, and as discretely as possible, picked up and tucked away his sword. "Well, there appears to only be one way out of here, so the sooner we start digging the sooner we can get the wounded into the TARDIS." Not waiting for anyone, he began by lifting a head-sized rock and tossing it to the side. They he picked up another, ignoring the pain in his shoulder that was still repairing itself.

Albert Gibson snorted. "It's going to take forever to move all that. We haven't got a prayer."

Amanda King-Stetson went to join Santini with the rock moving. After tossing one large rock away from the entrance, she turned to Gibson. "Heaven helps those who help themselves, so grab a rock already."

"Hey!" Multi-Man dropped the downcast look that had been on his face. "I think I can help clear it faster." He began to multiply himself, forming several rows. "Now I can pass rocks down the line of Multi-me's so they don't pile up too close to where we are working."

They continued working at the rocks for a few moments while Ludo monitored those recovering from the drone process. Microwoman made sure everyone carefully worked around her husband's leg that was still elongated through the cave-in pile and trapped on the far side.

It was Boxey who called them to a halt. "The rest of these boulders are too large for us to move," he said, pointing out the fact none of them wanted to acknowledge. "And we can't dig around them either."

Nikita looked up from where she had collapsed, having done too much after having lost a lot of blood. "So…what? Are we just stuck here?"

He shook his head. "Not necessarily." He went over and picked up a laser rifle. "Hopefully with a few well placed blasts, we can clear a way through." He motioned for the others to get clear when he heard the heavy shuffling of the other former drone in the chamber with them.

Still not completely trusting in the extra-large drone, Boxey wheeled around, aiming his weapon at Ludo. "What do you think you are doing?" he snarled. It was the Borg that got his adopted father, Apollo, killed. His father whose body still rested in the back of the cave with several others that didn't survive the Borg. His emotions urged him to take his aggression out on the drone, yet the forlorn look on Ludo's face made that impossible. "What?" he practically screamed.

"Ludo knows…a better way." He stood still waiting to know if the Colonial Warrior would accept his help.

Juliet stepped between Ludo and Boxey. Then with a stern look at Boxey she motioned for him to lower his weapon. He growled in frustration, before turning away to march around the room, letting off some steam.

"Can you?" Juliet asked. "Can you help?"

Ludo nodded, his sad eyes regarding her.

"Can you physically move that massive boulder, or," she pointed to the cannon-like device the Borg had replaced his arm with. "Are you going to blast your way through?"

Ludo shook his massive head. "No. Ludo talk to rocks."

Her face showed her confusion. "Talk to…rocks? What?"

Ludo shuffled past her. "Ludo talk to rocks." Stopping right in front of the blocked entrance, Lugo drew in a great breath of air, then let out a deep, rumbling howl that reverberated all throughout the chamber. Then he repeated the groaning wail, again and again.

Juliet was about to ask him to stop when one of the larger boulders suddenly rolled out of the wall, and rolled past them. Then another followed after it. Diefenbaker growled and chased the large boulders that were behaving strangely. Finally, the wolf decided to just stay next to Constable Fraser, growling at any boulders that came near.

The largest rocks were wedged in tight, but finally pulled their way free, but even Ludo had to get out of it's way because of the lack of room. The last boulder on the other side was proving to be too stuck, until Ludo came to add his considerable strength to push it out of the way. The Gorilla, Matheson, Franklin, Santini and the Minbari Ranger added their muscle until finally it rolled forward just clear of the entrance.

The fighting had escalated. And it didn't seem to be going the way of the heroes. The broken shell of the Decepticon Dirge lay nearby having caused the cave-in when it had fallen.

Fluid-Man was spraying the drone of Michael Knight against the wall as if he was using a fire hose. "No one gets away with making one of my friends a cyber-zombie!" The subject of his anger, Coil-Man, lay behind him twitching in pain as the nano-probes in his body took him over.

Wonder Woman knocked the heads together of Tomax and Xamot, two terrorist brothers turned drone, leaving them unable to fight. Then she faced the lion-like visage of Vincent, blocking the tubules he attempted to stab her with, then flipping him over where he crashed into the Warlord Shank drone.

Dynomutt was scattered in pieces; his head lay in the direction of the TARDIS and appeared to be talking, but nothing he said made sense while a small white flag waved from his forehead.

Black Canary stood protectively over the stunned Green Arrow using her sonic 'Canary Cry' to try hold back the drone of Tygra of the ThunderCats.

Bionic-1of the superhero team Bionic Six, had managed to defeat the teenage hero Cyborg, injecting him with nano-probes. Having succeeded in his task, the Bionic-1 drone had just turned to it's next assignment when he convulsed several times before collapsing. After a few seconds, the Atom grew to full size, not feeling very victorious as he had not defeated the drone before it had infected Cyborg.

Super Samurai had put two drones out of commission, one of Martin Riggs and the other Savannah Nix, only to face his teammate Hercules who had just been turned.

Robin was struggling two hold off two drones, one of the Blue Rajah, the other of an obese African-American teenager nicknamed Fat Albert. Aqualad was struggling to keep the Hugo Reyes drone from stabbing him to inject, while Speedy was on Reyes back, with his bow tucked under the drone's chins, the teenager pulled for all he was worth to try and separate them.

Gravity Girl was using her powers to keep the infected Meteor Man pinned to the ground, while her partner Vapor Man worked at keeping her from being attacked from other drones.

Sinbad of the Freedom Force was having the surreal experience of fighting another Sinbad from a different reality who was only a first stage drone.

Samson hoisted a boulder as large as himself and sent it hurtling so that it struck the Borg controlled Apache Chief directly between the eyes. The giant hero stumbled back before catching himself on the cavern wall. Waited a few seconds as the nanites controlling his body repaired the damage. Samson through another large boulder at the Borg controlled hero only to have it blasted away in a burst of flame by the Planeteer known as Wheeler, yet another new slave of the Borg.

Up overhead, Birdboy was weaving through the stalactites while being chased by Birdman and Hawkgirl, both first stage drones. Trying to catch up and stop them came Samurai, wobbling somewhat from the injuries he had received earlier, but managing to maintain the miniature tornado that bore him. He focused on his Bushido training to keep his focus and not pass out. Chasing after him was a two and a half foot tall Trobbit drone called Gossamer, who flew by flapping his massive ears.

On the other side of a small forest of stalagmites, blasts were being exchanged between Space Ghost and drones that used to one of his regular foes, Creature King, as well as Frank Black. Web Woman and her furry, insectoid alien sidekick, Spinner, had managed to snare in her netting several of the infected Trobbits – Rif, Burble and Carpo along with the Astromite Plutem. The other Astromite Glax was aiding the only free Trobbit, Poulo, who could only communicate through whistling; together they struggled to hold the Trobbit Terra to the ground until someone could come to help them. Merlin of the Freedom Force had to use all his considerable powers against the centuries old enchantress Mara and the king of the Trobbits, Balkar, who used elemental magic.

The empowered lion named Goliath was now savagely tearing into a winged dragon-horse called Warlock. The lion's opponent before the cave-in, the canine Gargoyle Bronx, was nowhere to be seen. Neither was the clan leader of the Gargoyles, Goliath.

"Hola!"

This greeting surprised those that had just freed themselves from the smaller cave. Mostly they were surprised because the bare-chested man of South American descent had literally appeared out of thin air right next to them.

"El Dorado, at your service," he said with a small bow and roguish grin. "Is everything all right with your group?" He eyed Ludo with a raised eyebrow before determining that he was alright.

"We've survived, but can't say much more than that," O'Neill answered.

"You've picked up a friend," the Hispanic hero nodded toward the hulking Ludo.

"He says he and a few other drones found themselves suddenly released from the Collective. He had evidently gone into hiding in here before we came along and took refuge ourselves."

"You're a telepath!" announced Lt. John Matheson. "You're scanning us!"

"Si!" the superhero admitted. "I had to be sure your arrival wasn't some sort of trick by the Borg, a type of Trojan Horse. You understand?"

"Not really," Boxey said. "So explain already!" he ended with a snarl.

"And I, El Dorado, shall," placated the hero. "We are trying to keep the Borg from gaining access to the TARDIS. They have it surrounded and have placed some type of energy posts in a circle around it. The Doctor has informed us that the posts will keep the TARDIS anchored here."

Stephen Franklin looked around the battle scenes. "I can't see the TARDIS anywhere, just those glowing posts some of the drones are guarding."

"In the middle of those posts, you see the large dome. Inside there is the TARDIS."

"How did it get buried?" asked Santini. "It doesn't look like a cave-in did that."

"No cave-in involved," chuckled El Dorado. "It is a dome. The Doctor had me use my telepathic abilities to rouse the stunned Firestorm. Under my guidance, Firestorm was able to transmute the air around the dome into a particular metallic compound that the Doctor knew about that the Borg would find particularly difficult to circumvent."

Franklin shook his head, frustrated. "So there is no way we can transport our wounded into the TARDIS."

"It is not a problem for me," El Dorado said with a smile. "I can teleport you there one at a time."

"That's how you just appeared right next to us!" Franklin said, with excitement, his mind already thinking of what equipment he would like to use to study this power with.

"Si! Now I should most likely take the wounded first."

"Right this way," Franklin said, leading the way back into the smaller chamber.

The others took their places guarding the entrance. O'Neill and Matheson took one side while Santini and Boxey took the other. The Gorilla and the other Colonial Warrior both had to find a place to sit and rest their injuries. Ludo huddled near the cave wall inside, trying to be as small as he could make himself.

"This is fraking frustrating!" growled Boxey. "I want to go out there and start blasting away at them!"

Santini let out a tired sigh. "And that would make us a high priority target for the drones. It would put all the people back there that that Dorado fella is moving back to the TARDIS at risk."

"I know. I was just saying what I wanted to-"

Coil-Man was suddenly pressure washed against the cavern wall next to them. The crashed to the ground before being splashed back into it.

Boxey raised his blaster. "This one is too close," he said, aiming at the recently turned drone's head.

Dominic Santini knocked the Colonial Warrior's weapon away before jumping forward and grabbing the spring-like hero by the shoulders and dragging him back to their shelter.

"Hey! Ludo! I got another patient for you!"

But the massive Ludo seemed to shy away from him.

"Hey, what's with the shy guy treatment?" The battered drone was still somewhat incoherent, but was starting to put up a struggle. "This guy needs your help."

"Scared."

"A big guy like you? Did you forget how you took down Superstretch and then put him to right again?"

O'Neill peeked around the corner to see what was going on. Seeing the situation, he decided to let them handle it, but stayed to observe.

"No choice there." He looked out past the boulder still in the entrance. "Here, Borg everywhere." He started to retreat into himself again. "They will see Ludo. Ludo scared."

Santini felt like he was talking to a little kid. Considering he had no idea what Ludo was, he just might be. "Look, Ludo, sometimes we have to do the right thing, regardless of the consequences." He paused while Ludo turned to look at him with his sad eyes. "Yes, the Borg may come after us. But the reality is that they are so busy out there that this is the best time to get away with helping this…this weird looking fella."

Coil-Man was standing straighter now, and Santini was right behind him with his arms held tight around his broad chest. He wasn't ready for the hero-turned-drone to suddenly spring upwards, crashing Santini into the low rock ceiling of the entryway.

O'Neill leapt forward, tackling Coil-Man's legs as he came down so that he couldn't get a decent jump when he landed. Santini fell limply to the ground with a bloody head. The Coil-Man pushed one of his arms against the side wall, enabling him to spring sideways down the tunnel.

"Coiley?" all of the Multi-Man duplicates said at once.

"Help me keep him from getting away!" shouted O'Neill as he held on to the springy hero drone, taking a battering each time he hit something. He did notice that El Dorado was gone, as well as the injured Visitor named Philip. He wasn't sure if they had evacuated the invisible Bobby Hobbes, but hoped he didn't find out by landing on him.

The Multi-Man clones were up for the task and as soon as Coil-Man touched the ground, they began to pile on him, weighing him down. The only problem being that they were piling on top of O'Neill, too.

Juliet Parrish dragged the protesting Ludo down the tunnel sternly told him what to do. "Now you fix up that…hero person right now. And I mean it."

The Coil-Man tried to spring away, but was too bogged down. The Multi-Man doubles cleared an opening as much as they could so that Ludo could have a clear shot at his teammate of the Impossibles.

With a whimper, Ludo finally administered the nano-probe antidote, just as El Dorado returned.

"Did I miss something?" asked the newest member of the newly formed Justice League, formerly known as the Super Friends.

"Just another recovering victim of the Borg," Juliet said. "And it's all thanks to Ludo here."

Ludo's mouth split into a large grin.

"Oops!" said one of the Multi-men. "I think we have another victim here. But he's not a drone."

As they piled off, Jack O'Neill was revealed as a bloody and bruised mess. "I told you you could do it," he managed to say, looking at Ludo. "Next time just try to do it faster." He grimaced as Coil-Man was pulled away from him. "Medic," he managed to say, giving himself over to the doctors that started to swarm around him.

"Hey!" Matheson's voice could be heard clearly down the tunnel. "Santini's up again, only he headed off a drone coming this way. It's of someone called John Blackstar. And they are sword fighting!"

**AUTHOR's NOTES**

_Yes, I keep making the story longer. But on the good side of things I am posting faster!_

**In order of appearance or mention**

Space Ghost – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Isis – from the TV series Isis

Elektra – from the cartoon Space Stars _'Teen Force'_

Kid Comet – from the cartoon Space Stars _'Teen Force'_

The Twelfth Doctor – from the TV series Doctor Who

Birdman – from the cartoon Birdman & The Galaxy Trio _'Birdman'_

Moleculad – from the cartoon Space Stars _'Teen Force'_

Birdboy – from the cartoon Birdman & The Galaxy Trio _'Birdman'_

Sinbad – from the cartoon Tarzan & The Super 7 _'Freedom Force'_

Kobra Khan – from the cartoon He-Man and the Masters of the Universe

Merlin – from the cartoon Tarzan & The Super 7 _'Freedom Force'_

Webstor – from the cartoon He-Man and the Masters of the Universe

Multi-Man – from the cartoon Frankenstein, Jr. & The Impossibles _'The Impossibles'_

Willie – from the TV series V- The Series

Thelma – from the TV series V- The Series

Juliet Parrish – from the TV series V- The Series

Elizabeth Maxwell – from the TV series V- The Series

Microwoman – from the cartoon Tarzan & The Super 7 _'Superstretch And Microwoman'_

Superstretch – from the cartoon Tarzan & The Super 7 _'Superstretch And Microwoman'_

Plastic Man – from the cartoon The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show

Zack Allen – from the TV series Babylon 5

Dominic Santini – from the TV series Airwolf

Albert Gibson – from the movie True Lies

Nikita – from the TV series Le Femm Nikita

Dr. Stephen Franklin – from the TV series Babylon 5

Philip – from the TV series V- The Series

Boxey – from the TV series Battlestar Galactica

Constable Benton Fraser – from the TV series Due South

Diefenbaker – from the TV series Due South

Dr. Sarah Chambers – from the TV series Crusade

Lt. John Matheson – from the TV series Crusade

Agent Bobby Hobbes – from the TV series Invisible Man

Mrs. Amanda King-Stetson – from the TV series Scarecrow & Mrs. King

Lee "Scarecrow" Stetson – from the TV series Scarecrow & Mrs. King

Jack O'Neill – from the TV series Stargate – SG1

Angus MacGyver – from the TV series MacGyver

Samantha Carter - from the TV series Stargate-SG1

Bill Maxwell – from the TV series The Greatest American Hero

Dirge – from the cartoon Transformers

Ludo – from the movie Labyrinth

Blix – from the movie Legend (mentioned only)

Xena – from the TV series Xena: Warrior Princess (mentioned only)

Lord Bowler – from the TV series The Adventures Of Brisco County, Jr. (mentioned only)

Sarah – from the movie Labyrinth (mentioned only)

Lucas Wolenczak – from the TV series SeaQuest DSV (mentioned only)

Lex Luthor – from the TV series Smallville (mentioned only)

Apollo – from Battlestar Galactica (mentioned only)

Fluid-Man – from the cartoon Frankenstein, Jr. & The Impossibles _'The Impossibles'_

Michael Knight – from the TV series Knight Rider

Coil-Man – from the cartoon Frankenstein, Jr. & The Impossibles _'The Impossibles'_

Wonder Woman – from the cartoon Super Friends

Tomax – from the cartoon G.I. Joe

Xamot – from the cartoon G.I. Joe

Vincent – from the TV series Beauty & The Beast

Warlord Shank – from the TV series Space Cases

Dynomutt – from the cartoon The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour

Black Canary – from DC Comics

Green Arrow – from the cartoon Super Friends

Tygra – from the cartoon ThunderCats

Bionic-1 – from the cartoon Bionic Six

Cyborg – from the cartoon The SuperPowers Team: Galactic Guardians

Atom – from the cartoon Super Friends

Super Samurai – from the cartoon Tarzan & The Super 7 _'Freedom Force'_

Martin Riggs – from the movie Lethal Weapon

Savannah Nix – Savannah Nix – from the movie Beyond Thunderdome

Hercules – from the cartoon Space Sentinels as well as Tarzan & The Super 7 _'Freedom Force'_

Robin – from the cartoon Super Friends

Blue Rajah – from the movie Mystery Men

Fat Albert – from the cartoon Fat Albert And The Cosby Kids

Aqualad – from the cartoon The Superman/Aquaman Hour Of Adventure

Hugo Reyes – from the TV series Lost

Speedy – from the cartoon Aquaman _'The Teen Titans'_

Gravity Girl – from the cartoon Birdman & The Galaxy Trio _'The Galaxy Trio'_

Meteor Man – from the cartoon Birdman & The Galaxy Trio _'The Galaxy Trio'_

Vapor Man – from the cartoon Birdman & The Galaxy Trio _'The Galaxy Trio'_

Sinbad – from the TV series The Adventures Of Sinbad

Samson – from the cartoon Young Samson & Goliath

Apache Chief – from the cartoon The All-New Super-Friends Hour

Wheeler – from the cartoon Captain Planet And The Planeteers

Hawkgirl – from the cartoon The All-New Super-Friends Hour

Samurai – from the cartoon The All-New Super-Friends Hour

Gossamear – from the cartoon Blackstar

Creature King – from the cartoon Space Ghost

Frank Black – from the TV series Millennium

Web Woman – from the cartoon Tarzan & The Super 7 _'Web Woman'_

Spinner – from the cartoon Tarzan & The Super 7 _'Web Woman'_

Rif – from the cartoon Blackstar

Burble – from the cartoon Blackstar

Carpo – from the cartoon Blackstar

Plutem – from the cartoon Space Stars _'Teen Force'_

Glax – from the cartoon Space Stars _'Teen Force'_

Poulo – from the cartoon Blackstar

Terra – from the cartoon Blackstar

Mara – from the cartoon Blackstar

Balkar – from the cartoon Blackstar

Goliath – from the cartoon Young Samson & Goliath

Warlock – from the cartoon Blackstar

Bronx – from the cartoon Gargoyles

Goliath – from the cartoon Gargoyles

El Dorado - from the cartoon The All-New Super-Friends Hour

Firestorm – from the cartoon Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show

John Blackstar – from the cartoon Blackstar


	51. Chapter 51

**A Tangled Web Part 8**

**Chapter 51**

The Doctor adjusted his sonic screwdriver after disabling a Horde Trooper turned drone. Glancing around, he let out a frustrated sigh. The army he had gathered wasn't lasting as long as he had hoped. Even worse, several of them had already been injured, or worse, turned into drones themselves. The towering Apache Chief had been one of the first to become a 1st Stage drone. Currently, Plastic Man had himself stretched around the American Indian in order to restrain the drone. Several of the heroes that had been taken over by the Borg had since been give the cure that cleared out the Borg nano-probes, repaired the damage caused to the bodies, and freed their minds. But even so they were nowhere near ready to fight again. Most wouldn't be ready after a week of recovery in a hospital bed.

Zan, Isis, Superstretch, Coil-Man, Meteor Man, and several others were even now just beginning to recuperate from within the safe confines of the TARDIS, while their comrades continued to fight in the cavern with drones made of friends and foes.

It was the Doctor's twelfth regeneration. And while he had the memories of his previous generations, they all had their experiences in this place strangely missing or blocked. A phenomena he had not encountered before. At least not to his recollection.

Then he saw a sight that clutched to his two hearts. The powerhouse Samson had become a Stage 1 drone, and was now walking towards his magically powered lion Goliath. The lion roared but backed away from it's master who was no longer in control of himself. Still walking forward, Samson raised his arms and slammed his wristbands together with sent a shockwave of magical energy at the lion, turning him into the form of a white dog. Goliath, now a dog again, he whined as much as he growled, backing steadily away.

"Stop, Samson!"

The Doctor was surprised to see that the young Brazilian lad, Ma-Ti, was no longer in the safe interior of the TARDIS.

"You don't want to hurt Goliath. You don't want to hurt any of us." Ma-Ti held up the ring Gaia had given him and was pouring his will through it. "What the Borg is doing is wrong. You can help stop this. Do you hear me, Samson? You can help stop this."

To the surprise of the Doctor, Samson stopped and was starting to tremble. "N-n-noooo, can't…fight. Too hard." The muscle-bound hero fell to his knees as he warred an internal struggle.

Goliath whined and took a step toward his master.

"N-nooo!" Samson managed to say, swinging an arm in a threatening manner at the canine. "Go away!"

"You're fighting it!" Ma-Ti cried out excitedly.

"I-I-I'm losing-"

The Doctor caught Elektra's eye as she came out from behind some tables. The time-lord quickly pointed to the syringe in his hand, then to Samson. Elektra nodded, and telekinetically took the syringe, then sent it out like a shot so that it hit and injected into Samson's chest.

Samson gargled a response as he looked at Ma-Ti in surprise, and then slowly slumped over.

El Dorado responded to Elektra's telepathic call and quickly took Samson away before returning for the dog.

The Doctor was tackled to the ground as a wave of flames passed through where he was. He and his rescuer rolled behind a large stalactite that had fallen. After the flames had stopped, he finally turned to see who saved him.

"You need to be more aware of your surrounds, Doctor," came the light chastisement from a woman in a pink leotard and wearing a mask.

"My thanks, Web Woman."

She nodded, then looked up to see Moleculad flying by with two Borg controlled heroes, Kid Comet and Birdman, chasing after him. From a hiding spot in the cavern ceiling, Birdboy swooped down and gave chase to the two Stage 1 drones.

"The boy is in over his head," she said before sending out a webline to the ceiling, then began pulling her up. "See you after I help out the boy!" she called down to him.

He looked around for her sidekick, Spinner, finally spotting the insectoid alien using webbing from it's body to cocoon the Green Hornet Stage 2 drone.

Another wave of fire swept past him, and he looked past some rocks to see the source of the fire. Several of the Planeteers had gathered together, one now the slave of the Borg.

The blond Russian Linka used her ring to control wind to blow the flares of fire that the Borg possessed Wheeler sent towards her and the others.

"Kwame, how is Gi?" Linka shouted out.

"Just stunned I think." Kwame, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and then used his ring to cause the rocks between them and Wheeler to rise upwards, forming a barricade.

Linka fell to her knees, panting. "Why'd you do that?"

He looked her in the eyes. "Because we are exhausting ourselves and we need a moment to pull a plan together."

She nodded. But used her power to summon a cool breeze for them, and to blow away the hot air that Wheeler had been generating.

"He didn't seem to be tiring."

Kwame nodded, and let out a sigh. "I was hoping his ring would have run out of power by now."

"Gaia did say she didn't know how long the power of the rings would last away from Earth."

"Perhaps,…could the Borg be adding to his power, making it last longer."

Linka shrugged. "We need to think of something soon, before-"

The rocks between them and their controlled friend began to melt like wax. The two teens jumped to their feet, grabbing Gi and hoisting her by her arms, before the lava-like rock got to her.

"I've got Gi!" insisted Kwame. "Protect us as we get to cover!" He took on all of Gi's weight and began to hurry as fast as he could.

"Da!" she agreed.

They had assumed that the Wheeler drone would be coming through where he was melting the rock. Instead, he had been walking around while aiming his ring at same point in the rock wall. Linka barely managed to use her wind powers to blow the flare of flames up in the air.

"Kwane! Hurry! I don't know how much longer I can keep the fire away!" Then, before she could say anything else, Wheeler suddenly pitched forward, falling to the ground in a lump.

"Kwane! Something happened to Wheeler!"

The African teen twisted to look back. "Linka, it could be a trick!"

Linka froze. She had only taken a half a dozen steps toward Wheeler, but would she really put herself in jeopardy if she went any closer.

Suddenly, something near Wheeler's head moved and grew into a full sized man in a red and blue costume.

"Are you two all right?" asked the size-changing Atom.

Linka wanted to laugh at that statement. She wasn't sure anything would be alright again. Ever. She pressed past the Atom in order to check on her teammate.

Kwane stood there for a moment trying to decide if he should go back with Gi, or continue carrying her to a more sheltered area.

"Can I give you a hand with her?"

"Yieee!" He almost dropped her in his surprise, then saw that it was the hero El Dorado. "You…you startled me."

The Hispanic hero tried to keep the smirk off his face, though he failed a bit. "I'll take her to the TARDIS for you."

Kwane nodded, glad that one of his friends would be safe. He looked over at Linka who had tears in her eyes.

Elsewhere, he could see Vapor Man lying on the rock floor stunned, Gravity Girl trying to keep him safe from three Sleestak Borg drones. Further on, he saw Fluid-Man using every watery trick he had in order to protect several stunned copies of Multi-Man from drones made out of Captain Nemo, the Phantom and the Yellow Wasp. Super Samurai had his hand full against John Blackstar and Speedy.

Their numbers were dwindling. Even worse, many of their number had been taken over by the other side. He could not see how this could end well

The Doctor took in all this as well as he ducked around a barrier that still remained standing to avoid two approaching drones. He had recognized one from having come from the universe with many other law enforcement officials, a Det. John Kimble. The other drone's host the Doctor recognized from his travels. Someone he avoided at all cost. After all he racked up quite a few tickets while in that reality, and he learned rather quickly that you did not want to get on the wrong side of Judge Dredd. He almost started worrying that the obsessive Judge had followed him to this microverse, but couldn't see how that was possible. If it hadn't been for his wanting to deal with the man, or rather how the Judge would deal with him, he would have sought out the Judge's aid, hoping the brute's ability to cause destruction would help take the Borg down. Evidently, Judge Dredd had more than met his match and was now working for the other side.

He hurried down the hall that was mostly clear of debris, almost passing a doorway when he saw movement ahead. The slow, staggered movement of the Borg. He ducked into the doorway that turned out to be a led into a small chamber, pulling a small table up to plug up the entrance in the hopes that the drones would just walk past.

Inside were a number of robots and androids being held on table and some against the wall in energy restraints. He also took notice of a large drone of a dark haired humanoid that resembled a Neanderthal who had evidently fallen somehow and was slumped against the wall as if stunned or like a puppet that had it's strings cut.

"Hello," came a surprising clear greeting that almost seemed cheerful despite the environment. "My name is Chip Carson. Would you please help release my friends and I? We really don't like it here."

"His kind won't help us," responded a dark-haired male android who the Doctor almost didn't realize was an android. But now that he did, he determined that he was a type of pleasure-droid. A none too happy one at that.

"Sentient are you?" asked the Gallifreyan.

"We think so," answered a boy tucked back further against the wall. The Doctor had missed seeing him at first, but now that he did, he thought the boy looked completely Human.

"And who might you be?" he asked, deciding to free the boy first, hoping to get some answers as to the unusual room.

"Daryl," answered the boy, unafraid, which the Doctor took to be a sign of his artificial nature.

"I thought the Borg were absorbing all the technological and biological people as quickly as they could?" he asked.

"That tramp lured us in. Used some kinda siren-y call that pulled us down here. Then had us hogtied so she could study us at her leisure before she takes us apart one piece at a time." The robot speaking resembled a short, metal trash can that been run over by the dump truck quite a few times. "Said somethin' about things bein' too hectic just now to appreciate the unique opportunities we present."

"No! No disassemble Johnny 5!" Behind the Doctor was a robot built onto wheeled treads with a metal stick figure top that was shaking in terror. "No disassemble! No disassemble!"

"Now see what you started, B.O.B.," chastised another robot that seemed to be the same model as the beaten up robot, but newer and in mint condition. It also appeared more spherical than its counterpart.

Having freed the boy, the Doctor use his sonic screwdriver on the magnetic bands holding onto the newer model of robot similar to B.O.B.. "And who might you be?"

"I am VINCENT. And who are you?"

"Yes, I am," answered the Doctor sagaciously.

Having disabled he magnetic bands, VINCENT began to rise up into the air slowly, hovering about two feet off the cave floor, his eyes glowing yellow.

"Is that a telepathic probe I detect, VINCENT?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

VINCENT's eyes immediately stopped glowing. "I apologize for the rude behavior; I had hoped to ascertain your intentions regarding us."

"A valid point of interest, but you might have just asked."

"So what are your intentions?" asked Daryl, who had just freed the sharp-looking prostitute pleasure-droid and was now working on freeing a pale man with long, black hair that was in incredible disarray, but had the unusual feature of having several unusually long pairs of sharp scissors in the place of his fingers.

"Right now just to free you all."

"Can I be free, too?" asked Chip from where he was still strapped down tight.

"I'll get him," said the pleasure droid, still a little apprehensive around the new arrival.

"And what's your name?" asked the time-lord, hoping to get an understanding of these artificial lifeforms.

"Those that know me ask for me by name. Gigolo Joe, what do ya know?" giving the Doctor just a bit of his charmed smile.

"Can we hold on the introductions until we are all free?" asked a pretty female android. "The more we have free, the more we have available to fight when the Borg come at us again."

"I'll give ya a hand, lil' lady," came B.O.B.'s response now that he was flying free, too.

"There's no reason we can't free people and introduce ourselves at the same time," he said, meeting her determined look. "As long as we don't let the introduction slow us down," amended the Doctor.

"Very well. I am Rommie. I'm the-"

"-android avatar of the High Guard Glorious Heavy Cruiser Andromeda."

"How did you know that?"

"From a chap by the name of Professor X who telepathically dumped a lot of who's who information in my head when I showed up. A bit disconcerting, but valuable nonetheless."

"Can you tell me about my crew? Are they safe?" asked the android avatar.

"They were listed as still active except for a Seamus Harper."

"Seamus? Is he critical?" Rommie's voice gave off a hint of apprehension.

"I have no idea."

"Can you ask? Telepathically, I mean."

He shot her a smile. "I thought you wanted us to concentrate our efforts on freeing the others instead of communicating with each other."

"I thought you said we can do both."

"Very well." His head fell in defeat. But then something on a side table caught his eye. "What…what happened here?"

On what appeared to be an operation table of some sort, lay a small robot that had been partially grafted to an equally small alien creature. Whatever the Borg had hoped to achieve by joining the two had failed, as both halves were devoid of life.

"One of the experiments the Borg Queen has been trying," Rommie answered quietly as she stepped next to him. "Being low on resources to make her regular drones, she had been attempting to graft androids and robots to the organic sentients she captures. She seems to have taken up a new hobby in trying to make the two forms compatible. But that didn't seem to work very well for WALL-E and E.T. here." She ran a hand gently over WALL-E's optical sensors, heedless of the organic fluid that had spilled over from E.T.. "She seemed quite upset that they had ceased functioning, blaming it on the fact that she didn't have the time or resources to keep them from dying."

"So now she is playing Dr. Frankenstein." He briefly wondered which of these androids and robots that the Borg Queen would try to amalgamate him to. He actually shuddered. "Well, nothing for it right now. If you will get the lovely lady over there, I'll see if I can get a hold of an operator to check on your friend. For all we know all the lines could be busy."

While she didn't quite understand what he said, she did get the gist of it and was soon helping Sgt. Eve Edison free from her shackles. He paused as he looked down at a robot that appeared to be missing a few parts, but also showed signs of recent repairs. He recognized the assassination droid from his reputation, and was glad that it wasn't active when he crossed paths with IG-88.

The time-lord looked up for a moment, then nodded, before turning to Rommie. "That was Professor X. He said that your friend Seamus tried connecting his neural interface to a downed drone and ended up frying it. The Professor thinks Seamus is okay but has been too busy to give him a proper scan to be sure."

Rommie nodded as she absorbed this information. "Seamus can be a bit…impulsive at times," was all she said.

"Relax. Let your battery pack cool down," VINCENT could be heard saying to Johnny 5 while trying to free the frantic robot.

Daryl hurried over with his latest freed captive, a metal, robotic owl. "Johnny 5, look at this. Meet Bubo." The faux bird in question gave a metallic squeak or squeal.

Johnny 5 was quickly drawn into the captivating bird. "Pretty!"

The Doctor bent down to remove the metal bonds bolted into the floor. "They seemed to have taken a lot of care to make sure you never got anywhere." The robot in question had a dark bulbous body, short arms with stubby fingers, and a clear domed head that showed many of the internal workings. "And what do they call you back home?"

"I have been designated Robby the Robot."

The time-lord nodded. "How very…unimaginative."

"What is in a name? A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet," came Robbie's response.

The Doctor nodded in appreciation. "A robot that is a romantic. And here I thought today was just going to be dreary all day."

At a nearby table, a light blond haired man, or what appeared to be a man, was strapped down on a table, eyeing the time-lord. "What's your slant in freeing us?" he asked in a harsh but straightforward manner.

He removed the first of many bonds off Robby before answering. "Well, first, Chip asked me to."

Chip now stood up now that he was free. "Yes, I did make that request," he said with a nod and a smile.

The Doctor nodded to Chip before continuing. "And second-" He grunted as he removed another troublesome strap of metal holding Robby in place. "-there may or may not be some Borg drones coming down the hall out there, and they may or may not have seen me ducking in here.

Scorn built up in the blond haired man's face. "So we are all to be your cannon fodder so you can make your escape."

The Doctor shook his head as he concentrated on the task in front of him. "If that was my plan, than I would have begun it by releasing the more formidable of your group like that fellow over there." He gestured to a large boxing bot that had the name _'Atom'_ painted on it.

"Well if those drones are coming this way," began the blond man, "then you are definitely going to need fighters, so free me. I am quite adept to fighting my way through things.

Sgt. Eve Eden made her way over to the blond man. "He said they _'may'_ be heading this way, Roy Batty. But in case they are, we should be prepared." The android police officer leaned down to look him in the eye. "Now I have to ask you, Roy Batty, if I release you, will you control your destructive behavior until it is needed."

He had a trace of a smile. "I think I can do that, but you may be surprised how soon that may be."

Around the small chamber, the robots, androids, replicants and various other types of artificial lifeforms that the Borg had gathered, were working hard on freeing others of their kind. Rommie worked on disabling the energy binders that held the dark-skinned android called Solo. B.O.B. and Johnny 5 worked at removing the bolts holding the battle bot Atom in place. VINCENT reluctantly set about liberating the robot that had a bizarre exoskeleton that resembled the Human form, but had no head, just a small set of sensors on long extensions. VINCENT's claim that Hector reminded him too much of a robot he knew called Maximilian was not considered sufficient grounds to leave Hector tied down for the Borg to keep.

"Please," spoke out a voice. A robot bound to the wall had a metallic metal casing that had been shaped to resemble a Human with incredible detail. "I know that that most of the rest of us are not fighters, but may we be freed, too?"

Rommie called out, "Joe, get Andrew. VINCENT, stop dawdling and hurry up with Hector."

"Bidibidibidi, What about us?" asked a smaller robot called Twiki. His answer quickly came when Bubo landed on his head. "Hey! I'm not some roost. What do you think you are? A pigeon?"

The boy, Daryl, quickly ran up to the small robot and began checking to see how he was being held. He frowned. "This one's different. I don't know how to open this one."

"I should be able to explain it to you," came a new voice from on Twiki's person. Daryl was quickly introduced to Dr. Theopolis, a computer entity that inhabited the thick, small Frisbee shaped circle with lit-up cubes that Twiki wore around his neck like a cyber bling necklace. Dr. Theopolis quickly related the information to Daryl who responded flawlessly, releasing Twiki and Dr. Theopolis just as the Doctor came to lend a hand.

"You are definitely not a normal child are you?"

Daryl shook his head. "I was a military experiment. The place in my head where a Human brain should be is instead a micro-computer. Otherwise the rest of me is as Human as you. Though I were developed in a laboratory."

The Doctor chuckled. "Except that I'm not Human." The time-lord studied the boy's face for surprise, and noted the smile on the boy's face as a good sign. "Perchance, is your name an anagram?"

Daryl grimaced. "Yeah, unfortunately. It stands for Data Analyzing Robot Youth Lifeform."

The Doctor nodded. "That is a mouthful."

"Yep. But what do we call you?"

"My name. Oh, I think you'd have a hard pronouncing it with a Human throat, so most people call me the Doctor."

With a small bing, Twiki was freed. "Bidibidibidi I'm free! Thank you! Thank you!"

"That will do now," said the Doctor, while a smile as he patted the short robot on the head. "Now do you think you could go and watch the door? Let us know of any drones that come this way, but be sure to be quiet and unobserved."

"Not a problem, Doc! Whee!" They chuckled as they watch the happy little robot run off to his station, while Dr. Theopolis attempted to chastise him. Bubo lost his perch, but Daryl easily caught the robot owl.

"Well," said the Doctor, "who shall we liberate next."

Daryl pointed to humanoid robot held to a platform. It face, chest, forearms and legs had a white, plastic-like covering to give a more Human appearance, but the other areas were cables and the frame of the robot. "I'll take Sonny; why don't you free Tik-Tok." They could see that Gigolo Joe was releasing a trio of maintenance robots named Huey, Dewey and Louie. Andrew was trying to explain that he was trying to release an obstinate robot called Box who appeared a bit insane, or program impaired.

Tik-Tok was over five feet tall, had two, large green eyes, and his outer parts seemed to be mostly made of copper. His body was a large round ball bolted together with another smaller ball on top for a head. His legs were short and made of thick metal springs ending in a large flat bottoms reminisce of an elephant's foot. His arms were thin, mechanical arms that ended with mechanical hands, similar in function to that of a Human. While there appeared to be no mouth, the mechanical man did sport a large, thick, metal mustache.

The Doctor looked him over in appreciation. "Unless I'm mistaken, you are an actual clockwork automaton."

"You are correct," answered Tik-Tok, his mustache moving as he spoke.

At the Doctor's examination, he was quickly able to determine that he was being held by mostly physical straps. "Well, you'll be happy to know that I should have you out of there before the Borg show up."

"I am only a machine. So I cannot be sorry or happy, no matter what happens," he said, looking nonchalantly around at the activities of the others.

The Doctor shrugged. "Considering that the Borg will mostly take you apart to use the metals of your body for their construction purposes, I would think that it might just affect you somewhat more than you like. But if you don't really care, I could free the others first, since it might matter to them more."

Tik-Tok's head quickly swiveled back to the Doctor. "I have always valued my lifelessness. Free me and I will aid you in your endeavors."

The Doctor tried to keep his grin from becoming too smug as he worked on setting the clockwork mechanical man free.

Before the Doctor could say anything else, the Neanderthal drone sat up with a grunting groan. He was about to call out to the others when he noticed the fearful look in the drone's remaining eye. Deciding to go with his gut-instinct, the Doctor smiled and said. "I was wondering when you'd be waking up."

The Neanderthal looked at him, then searched the room with his eyes again. "Where is Dino Boy?"

"Um, you lost your son?"

"Not son. Lost Dino Boy," he insisted.

"I see," he said, though he didn't entirely. He continued working on freeing Tik-Tok, but kept conversing with the Neanderthal drone who had somehow become free of the Borg. He was also curious as to whether this _'Dino Boy'_ was a boy or a dinosaur or perhaps some young alien that the Neanderthal had taken in. "When did you last see him?"

"Ugh and Dino Boy have gray men come toward them. They have arm like this," he said lifting up the Borg implement that was in place of his left arm. "Shoots light at us. Ugh push Dino Boy into bushes. Then Ugh remember no more."

The Doctor nodded. "So your name is Ugh?" he asked to clarify.

The Neanderthal grunted in agreement as he started to stand.

"The drone's up!" came a shout from Eve Edison.

The Doctor jumped up, with his hands up. "Stop! He's no longer a slave to the Borg! Everybody stand down!"

Roy Batty charged forward, not acknowledging the time-lord's words. Johnny 5 emitted high sequels of fear, while Bubo fluttered above them in awkward swirls, adding his artificial chirps to the growing din.

Solo, being quick on the uptake, managed to trip the replicant before tackling him, only to be thrown off into the still shackled multi-armed robot Gog, who grabbed a hold of him.

'_Old'_ B.O.B. floated into Batty's path. "Now hold on there a sec', son," he began.

Growling, Batty batted the already battered old robot away to where he nearly smashed into the rock wall, and would have if not for VINCENT catching him.

"I really think you should-" was all the robot butler Andrew was able to say before being socked in the chin.

"Enough!" The Doctor pointed his sonic screwdriver at the rabid replicant, and Batty collapsed in agony with both hands held tightly over his ears. He kept it on the replicant until the boxing bot Atom placed his hand on Batty's chest, pinning him in place.

"All right now, I only want to explain this once since repeating myself just takes up too much of my time," expounded the time-lord. "Ugh here has been released from the collective mind of the Borg, which is known as the Borg Collective, in case you didn't know. An operative has somehow been slowly and randomly freeing individuals from the Borg. Most of these people are going to want to get as far away from the Borg as you do; some of the more obstinate and determined former members are going to want revenge or atonement. So killing Ugh here is actually counter-"

"Bidibidibidi, WE GOT TROUBLE!" called out Twiki as he ran from his post at the entryway.

The minor barricade the Doctor had set up in the entryway was forcibly removed as the drones of Judge Dredd, John Kimble, one of the Foot Clan ninjas, and a man named Luc Deveraux entered surveying the activity.

"I believe this is the type of situation we were trying to avoid," muttered to himself. Reaching over, the time-lord patted Atom on the arm. "I think you can let our friend up now," he explained to the boxing bot, even as he hurried to free Tik-Tok.

Atom looked down at Batty who was now looking murderous toward the drones that had just come in. Atom looked to the Doctor once again to make sure he wanted the raging replicant loose before doing just that.

Then all hell broke out.

¯`•.¸¸.•´¯`•.¸¸.•´¯`•.¸¸.•´¯`•.¸¸.•´¯`•.¸¸.•´¯`•.¸¸.•´¯` 

Neo raced along through the Borg Collective. In his right front pocket, his little guide, apply named Little Lex, told him of his next goal. "The next active template is down twenty-three, then left and down fifty-three."

"Right," Neo said, racing down the rows of templates of all the individuals the Borg had forced into their Collective. As he ran he held out his gloved hand to touch as many drones as he could, effectively erasing them. The glove had been something Luthor had come up with that would either release the drone, if their body happened to be in the Microverse they were in, or just flat out voided them from the Borg Collective. Considering how large the Borg Collective was, they couldn't even be sure the Borg Queen considered them a threat, or if she even knew they were there. "This better not be one of those vulture-headed dragon people. I'm not letting one of those things run around free.

"It was a Skeksis," Little Lex said. His programming let him read some of the facts about the templates, some of which he shared with Neo when Neo seemed up to listening.

"It was evil; I could feel it emanating from the thing. It was about as bad as that goblin creature you talked me into releasing."

"If you hadn't set Blix free, the Goblin would have still been fighting for the Borg. But free, the Goblin could have been a Gremlin in the gears. Upsetting all sorts of plans the Borg have."

"It could also work against our forces fighting the Borg." Neo knew they weren't going to agree, they had already had this argument twice and it just kept cycling. "Can you at least tell me who we are heading towards?"

"She doesn't have a name you or I could pronounce. She's part of an extraterrestrial race whose massive colony ship broke down over South Africa. Her kind were forced to live in militarized ghetto zone called District 9 for over twenty-five years. Often denied even the most basic of what you would consider Human necessities."

Neo said nothing as he ran and erased templates. "I guess Humans can be just as despicable as that Skeksis thing."

Neo continued his endless running. Since he wasn't in the Matrix, he couldn't go as fast as he wanted. And he could get tired.

He saw the red aura over the template in question, and he had to agree with Little Lex that she did resemble a humanoid prawn.

He tapped her, releasing the hold the Borg had over her. "Where to next, navigator? What do you have in our sites? Another Sleestak?"

"Go right for fourteen, then turn left for nineteen. There you should find another alien with reptilian features, a Drac named Jeriba Shigan, a hermaphrodite species."

"Whoa! Now that planet would have definitely had a different social dynamic than I grew up with."

"Hmm, and after that a humanoid alien that has passed as Human at times. A prince in exile from his planet, using the name Matthew Star while on Earth as a high-school student. Definitely want to free this one. He has a variety of powers."

Neo ran in quiet for a time until he tagged Jeriba Shigan.

"Okay, freed the hermaphrodite, now for the alien prince."

Little Lex gave the directions which turned out to be rather close, and Matthew Star was, too, soon gone from the Collective.

"Follow this line down for thirty templates. Then down two to the right where you will find a Metalunan, an humanoid shaped alien with nastier looking claws than the Sleestak, an exoskeleton around most of it's body, but has an enormous exposed brain."

"Must have run out of Humans."

"The next one is Human. One from far in the future named Gurney Halleck."

Neo ran, erasing templates as he went. He recognized a Caatati because Little Lex had named quite a few races when Neo had begun his run. The next he recognized was a Cardassian, then a Kazon, than a sad little Malon that was a child, a female Boslic, and a Dosi before getting to Gurney Halleck.

Neo fell to his knees, panting. "Need a break."

"You know that's not really air you're trying to suck in, right? And your body, it's not really a body since it's just an avatar for your mind to inhabit. So you shouldn't really be tired."

"Then my mind is tired," snapped Neo.

"Your mind is just not used to dealing with this kind of media. You must persevere."

"You suck."

Little Lex frowned up at him. "If not for yourself, then your lady friend."

Neo growled, and brushed his hair back as he stood up. "Trinity. Her name is Trinity, you little troll." He stretched even though technically he didn't have to.

Instead he just stood and stared at the crystalline alien template as he tried a breathing exercise

"It's a Tholian, in case you were wondering."

"I wasn't." He exhaled. "Who's next on your agenda?"

"An alien that goes by the handle of Centauri. He's a interstellar agent for an exclusive form of Starfighter regiment."

"What?"

"Hey, I can only gleam some of the information. You want to know more? Go find him after this and ask him yourself." He spouted out some directions. "You might find this interesting. An old starship pilot that goes by the handle of Space Cowboy."

Neo just grunted as they ran down the aisle and tapped a Klingon template.

**AUTHOR's NOTES**

_Okay, next posting, the Borg Queen goes down. I promise. I even pinky swear. Yes, I've extended it more and more, but at least I'm posting sooner each time._

_I've loved the Hanna-Barbara heroes so I wanted to do just a little more with that. I also wanted to stress the Borg Queen's new hobby of trying to put various biological and mechanical entities together due to lack of resources. So I included a Borg chop shop that wasn't currently running due to the nearby fighting. I am not against E.T.: I'm rather fond of him, but he had the correct body size to mesh with WALL-E. If you don't recognize all the androids and robots you can always check my list and look them up on line. Or, if you want a little more fun, look for the Where's WALL-E? posters, which I actually used to consider some of the robots, androids and other mechas to include. _

_Have a great weekend everyone!_

**In order of appearance or mention**

**The 12****th**** Doctor** (Peter Capaldi) – from the TV series Doctor Who (2013)

**Horde Trooper** – from the cartoon She-Ra: Princess Of Power (1985-1986)

**Apache Chief** (voiced by Michael Rye) – from the cartoon The All-New Super-Friends Hour (1977-1978), Challenge Of The SuperFriends (1978), Super Friends (1980-1983), SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984)

**Plastic Man / O'Brian, Eel** (voice by Michael Bell) – from the cartoon The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show (1979-1981)

**Zan** (voiced by Michael Bell) – from the cartoon The All-New Super Friends Hour (1977-1978), The World's Greatest Super-Friends (1979), Super Friends (1980-1983), SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984) (mentioned only)

**Isis** **/ Thomas, Andrea** (JoAnna Cameron) – from the TV series The Secrets Of Isis (1975-1976), (voiced by Diane Pershing) – Tarzan And The Super 7 _'Freedom Force'_ (1978-1980) (mentioned only)

**Superstretch / Cross, Chris** – from the cartoon Tarzan And The Super 7 _'Superstretch And Microwoman'_ (1978-1980) (mentioned only)

**Coil-Man** (voiced by Hal Smith) – from the cartoon Frankenstein, Jr. & The Impossibles _'The Impossibles'_ (1966-1968) (mentioned only)

**Meteor Man** (voiced by Ted Cassidy) – from the cartoon Birdman & The Galaxy Trio _'The Galaxy Trio'_ (1967-1969) (mentioned only)

**Samson** (voiced by Tim Matheson) – from the cartoon Young Samson & Goliath (1967-1968)

**Goliath** (voiced by Mel Blanc) – from the cartoon Young Samson & Goliath (1967-1968)

**Ma-Ti** (voiced by Scott Menville) – from the cartoon Captain Planet And The Planeteers (1990-1996)

**Elektra** (voiced by B.J. Ward) – from the cartoon Space Stars _'Teen Force'_ (1981)

**El Dorado** (voiced by Fernando Escandon) – from the cartoon Super Friends (1981, 1983), SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984)

**Web Woman / Webster, Kelly** (voiced by Linda Gary) – from the cartoon Tarzan And The Super 7 _'Web Woman'_ (1978-1980)

**Moleculad** (voiced by David Hubbard) – from the cartoon Space Stars _'Teen Force'_ (1981)

**Kid Comet** (voiced by Darryl Hickman) – from the cartoon Space Stars _'Teen Force'_ (1981)

**Birdman** (voiced by Keith Andes) – from the cartoon Birdman & The Galaxy Trio _'Birdman'_ (1967-1969)

**Birdboy** (voiced by Dick Beals) – from the cartoon Birdman & The Galaxy Trio _'Birdman'_ (1967-1969)

**Spinner** – from the cartoon Tarzan And The Super 7 _'Web Woman'_ (1978-1980)

**Green Hornet / Reid, Britt **(Van Williams) – from the TV series The Green Hornet (1966-1967)

**Linka** (voiced by Kath Soucie) – from the cartoon Captain Planet And The Planeteers (1990-1996)

**Wheeler** (voiced by Joey Dedio) – from the cartoon Captain Planet And The Planeteers (1990-1996)

**Kwame** (voiced by LeVar Burton) – from the cartoon Captain Planet And The Planeteers (1990-1996)

**Gi** (voiced by Janice Kawaye) – from the cartoon Captain Planet And The Planeteers (1990-1996)

**Gaia** (voiced by Whoopi Goldberg) – from the cartoon Captain Planet And The Planeteers (1990-1996)

**Atom / Palmer, Dr. Ray** (voiced by Pat Harrington, Jr.) – from The Superman/Aquaman Hour Of Power (1967), Aquaman (1967), (voiced by Wally Burr) – from the cartoon Super Friends (1980-1983), from DC Comics Showcase #34 (1961)

**Vapor Man** (voiced by Don Messick) – from the cartoon Birdman & The Galaxy Trio _'The Galaxy Trio' _(1967-1969)

**Gravity Girl** (voiced by Virginia Eiler) – from the cartoon Birdman & The Galaxy Trio _'The Galaxy Trio'_(1967-1969)

**Sleestak** – from the TV series Land Of The Lost (1974-1976)

**Fluid-Man** (voiced by Paul Frees) – from the cartoon Frankenstein, Jr. & The Impossibles _'The Impossibles'_ (1966-1968)

**Multi-Man** (voiced by Don Messick) – from the cartoon Frankenstein, Jr. & The Impossibles _'The Impossibles'_ (1966-1968)

**Nemo, Capt.** (Naseeruddin Shah) – from the movie The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)

**The Phantom / Walker, Kit **(Billy Zane) – from the movie The Phantom (1996)

**Yellow Wasp** – from DC Comics Sensation Comics #20 (1943)

**Super Samurai / Toshi** (voiced by Michael Bell) – from the cartoon Tarzan And The Super 7 _'Freedom Force'_ (1978-1980)

**Blackstar, John** (voiced by George DiCenzo) – from the cartoon Blackstar (1981-1982)

**Speedy / Harper, Roy** (voiced by Pat Harrington, Jr.) – from the cartoon Aquaman _'The Teen Titans'_ (1968), from DC Comics Adventure Comics #218 (1955)

**Kimble, John **(Arnold Schwarzenegger) – from the movie Kindergarten Cop (1990)

**Dredd, Judge **(Sylvester Stallone) – from the movie Judge Dredd (1995)

**Ugh** (voiced by Mike Road) – from the cartoon Space Ghost _'Dino Boy In The Lost Valley'_ (1966-1968)

**Carson, Chip **(Jay Underwood) – from the TV movie Not Quite Human (1987), Not Quite Human II (1989), Still Not Quite Human (1992)

**Gigolo Joe **(Jude Law) – from the movie A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

**Daryl** **/ Data Analyzing Robot Youth Lifeform** (Barret Oliver) – from the movie D.A.R.Y.L. (1985)

**B.O.B., **_**'Old'**_** / BiO-sanitation Battalion **(voiced by Slim Pickins) – from the movie The Black Hole (1979)

**Johnny 5 / Number 5** (voiced by Tim Blaney) – from the movie Short Circuit (1986), Short Circuit 2 (1988)

**VINCENT / Vital Information Necessary CENTralized** (voiced by Roddy McDowall) – from the movie The Black Hole (1979)

**Scissorhands, Edward **(Johnny Depp) – from the movie Edward Scissorhands (1990)

**Rommie** (Lexa Doig) – from the TV series Andromeda (2000-2005)

**Professor X / Xavier, Prof. Charles** (Patrick Stewart) – from the movie X-Men (2000), X-2: X-Men United (2003), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) (mentioned only)** Harper, Seamus** (Gordon Michael Woolvett) – from the TV series Andromeda (2000-2005) (mentioned only)

**WALL-E** – from the movie WALL-E (2008)

**E.T.** (voiced by Pat Welsh) – from the movie E.T., The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

**Borg Queen** (Alice Krige) – from the movie Star Trek: First Contact (1996), (Susanna Thompson) – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager (1999-2000)

**Frankenstein, Dr. Victor von** (Peter Cushing) – from the movie The Curse Of Frankenstein (1957), The Revenge Of Frankenstein (1958), The Evil Of Frankenstein (1964), Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969), Frankenstein And The Monster From Hell (1973) (mentioned only)

**Edison, Sgt. Eve **(Yancy Butler) – from the TV series Mann & Machine (1992)

**IG-88** (Paul Klein) – from the movie Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

**Bubo **– from the movie Clash Of The Titans (1981)

**Robbie the Robot **(Frankie Darro, voiced by Marvin Miller) – from the movie Forbidden Planet (1956)

**Batty, Roy **(Rutger Hauer) – from the movie Blade Runner (1982)

**Atom** – from the movie Real Steel (2011)

**Solo** (Mario Van Peebles) – from the movie Solo (1996)

**Hector** – from the movie Saturn 3 (1980)

**Maximilian **– from the movie The Black Hole (1979) (mentioned only)

**Andrew** (Robin Williams) – in the movie Bicentennial Man (1999)

**Theopolis, Dr. **(voiced by Eric Server) – Buck Rogers In The 25th Century (1979-1981)

**Sonny **(Alan Tudyk)– from the movie I, Robot (2004)

**Tik-Tok, the Army of Oz** (voiced by Sean Barrett) – from the movie Return To Oz (1985)

**Huey **– from the movie Silent Running (1972)

**Dewey **– from the movie Silent Running (1972)

**Louie **– from the movie Silent Running (1972)

**Box **– from the movie Logan's Run (1976)

**Dino Boy / Todd** (voiced by Mike Road) – from the cartoon Space Ghost _'Dino Boy In The Lost Valley'_ (1966-1968) (mentioned only)

**Gog** – from the movie Gog (1954)

**Foot Clan ninja** – from the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987-1996)

**Deveraux, Luc / GR44** (Jean-Claude Van Damme) – from the movie Universal Soldier (1992)

**Neo** – from the movie The Matrix (1999)

**Little Lex** (_a computer program made by Lex Luthor to resemble himself and aid Neo_) – from the TV series Smallville (2001-2011)

**Skeksis** – from the movie The Dark Crystal (1982)

**Blix** (Alice Playten) – from the movie Legend (1985)

**Prawn** – from the movie District 9 (2009)

**Shigan, Jeriba **_**'Jerry'**_ (Louis Gossett, Jr.) – from the movie Enemy Mine (1985)

**Star, Matthew **(Peter Barton) – from the TV series The Powers Of Matthew Star (1982-1983)

**Metalunan **– from the movie This Island Earth (1955)

**Halleck, Gurney** (Patrick Stewart) – from the movie Dune (1984)

**Centauri** (Robert Preston) – from the movie The Last Starfighter (1984)

**Space Cowboy **(George Peppard) – from the movie Battle Beyond The Stars (1980)


	52. Chapter 52

**A Tangled Web Part 8**

**Chapter 52**

_A quick note. There are a lot of robots and androids in this first part. I had a lot of fun with it. My inspiration for it came while researching well-known robots and androids and came across a collection of them all put together in a crowd. You can look up the image on line by googling __Where's WALL-E?__ There is also a __Where's WALL-E 2__ as well, and answer sheets, too. See how many you know and let me know how you did! As always, I have a list of everyone I used in the order I used them at the end. Enjoy, and please remember to review!_

¯`•.¸¸.•´¯`•.¸¸.•´¯`•.¸¸.•´¯`•.¸¸.•´¯`•.¸¸.•´¯`•.¸¸.•´¯`

Space Ghost poured the power from his energy bands into the force field protecting him and two others from the assault of the drones, several of whom used to be their allies. He had been doing fine flying around and blasting drones, but he had spotted El Dorado being struck by a stun beam before he could teleport the injured Super Samurai to the safe confines of the TARDIS. He had to protect him. No matter the cost to himself.

"I wish I could be sure how long his force field would hold up," the Doctor wondered out loud. He was watching the pounding of Space Ghost's invisible dome from the hallway he had explored earlier.

"You said you had considerable reinforcements," came an accusatory tone from behind him.

The Doctor gave a quick glance back at the football sized yellow robot hovering there. "I did, Weebo. Evidently things went poorly while I was away freeing you lot." He watched high above as the Borg controlled Apache Chief swayed while struggling to free himself from Wonder Woman's golden lasso. Wonder Girl provided cover for her, using her bracelets to deflect any shots aimed at her. Batman and Robin were nearby dealing two members of the Initiative, Forrest Gates and Graham Miller, who had been fully processed into drones.

"What is to be our mode of escape?" asked Kay-Em 14, a rather pretty gynoid.

The Doctor knew that the fifty some-odd robots, androids and various other types of artificial beings were listening intently for his response. He also knew that most of them had gained some level of sentience, enough to hope for safety and to continue to exist. Hope he was not willing to squash. "Over there, on the other side of that rock barricade is my ship, the TARDIS."

"The TARDIS?" The young dark-haired boy next to the time-lord looked up at him. "Is that an anagram?"

The Doctor smiled at the youthful cyborg, Daryl. "Indeed it is. It stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space. Well, actually my granddaughter, Susan, put that name together. It was the closest she could translate it to in your language. And is sounds much better that calling it a TT Type 40, Mark 1, don't you think? My people have created advanced technology in the fields of time and dimensional conveyances, and many other fields as well, but coming up with decent names for things was just not their strong suit."

"Wait, so you're saying you're an alien and a time traveler?" Daryl asked, wide-eyed.

The Doctor shrugged. "I'm quite a few centuries older than I look, too. But that's not important right now. What is important is getting us to safety. And the safest place around right now is the TARDIS."

"Will it hold all of us?" This came from the quiet Edward Sissorhands, a pale young man with many minor scars on his face and many long, sharp pairs of scissors for fingers. Scissors that he showed could be used as formidable weapons when he defended Daryl from the Foot Clan drone.

"Oh yes, you see the TARDIS employs a tesseract, so it's vastly larger on the inside. It's dimensionally transcendental, as the exterior and interior exist separately in different dimensions of reality."

"Enough with the science lesson!" Roy Batty barked, his left arm hanging loosely and leaking fluids, while his right arm had held a blaster of some kind that he had found. "We need a plan. Most of these…things…can't even fight."

The time-lord groaned with annoyance. Though they seemed to function just fine, there was an underlying edge of unease. It had been explained to him by Weebo that when the Borg Queen had inspected the catch of various android and robot life forms, she had taken dislike to the electronic entity known as Automan, saying he was a waste of energy resources. Then she devoured him on the spot in front of all of them. None of them like to consider their chances with the Borg Queen after that.

"We are all going to get to the TARDIS. We just have to think of a way to make it possible." He sized up the mechanical entities that filled the hall. "Now who can do a little reconnaissance for me?" Weebo. Bubo. VINCENT. _'Old'_ B.O.B."

"Sir?" VINCENT glided over to the time-lord followed by the beat-up droid known as _'Old'_ B.O.B. "I really do think that B.O.B. should be on this mission. He took a nasty blow from that Dredd drone."

"Oh shoot!" began _'Old'_ B.O.B. with his thick cowboy drawl. "I used to take harder hits from Maximilian and just shrug it off." He turned his optical sensors toward the Doctor. "I can do this, Doc. T'won't be a problem."

The Doctor nodded. As it was he didn't have much choice as none of the other artificial beings came forward. "I'm letting _'Old'_ B.O.B. in. Sorry, Vincent, but it should be safe. What I want from you three is to fly high, spread out, get a good idea of what-all is going on out there, then come back here and tell us."

"Doctor?" asked VINCENT. "Perhaps I could send you our finding through my ESP circuitry?"

The Doctor nodded after a moment. "But if there is any interference, come back right away."

VINCENT acknowledged it with a slight dip forward in his hovering before rising up to the cavern ceiling followed by _'Old'_ B.O.B. and a grumbling Weebo, and a wayward flying, metal, clockwork owl, Bubo.

A short robot with a very large round head spoke up just behind the time-lord. "I've calculated our chance of surviving, but I don't think you will like the results."

Squeezing the bridge of his nose, he turned to deal with the nuisance. "Marvin, I told you before, keep the negativity to yourself. We have enough troubles without everyone focusing on your worries."

The strange metallic robot let out an electronic groan of discontent. "I knew you didn't want to hear it."

"Shut it!" snarled Batty, whapping Martin hard on the top of his head.

"And now I have a headache," bemoaned the sorrowful robot as it moved back into a doorway that already held the Neanderthal former drone Ugh, who was showing signs of being very apprehensive about being near so many unusual beings.

Knowing that he only had a few moments, the Doctor went to check on the rescued robots. He patted Robby the Robot on the shoulder as he passed, asking him to hold the line. Gort stood tall, but moved slowly since the Borg had removed most of his power supply. Behind him came two companion droids named C-3PO and R2-D2 who were having an argument with Gigolo Joe, IQ-9, and the whistling Copper Kidd. Chip Carson was petting the small canine android C.H.O.M.P.S. while K-9000 unit Blitz watched curiously. Androids Questor, Mauser, and Max 404 were discussing the differences between robot, android, cyborg and mecha philosophy and physiology with Dr. Theopolis while Twiki tried to add his quips now and then. The Tin Man was winding up the springs in Tik-Tok so that the clockwork man wouldn't run down anytime soon. Slomo and 7-Zark-7 were trading tales of their various experiences.

He stopped to regard Rusty the Robot Boy and the larger robot Scooter, both of whom the time-lord had chosen to watch the treacherous Ro-Man Extension XJ-9, an alien android that had a body like that of a hairy gorilla with a old-fashioned diving helmet with television antennas for a head.

"Has he given you any troubles?"

"He tried!" said the boy robot, "But we showed him who is in charge, right, Scooter?"

Before the GoBot could answer, Ro-Man launched himself at the Doctor. Scooter and Rusty tackled him to the floor, their weight and strength being too much for the otherworldly robot.

"The Ro-Mans will come! They will overtake this place and all of you!" the alien robot threatened, remaining firm in his world view of things.

"Not if the Borg beat us. And if the Borg take you over, then they will have all the knowledge they need to take over the home-world of the Ro-Mans. And if the Ro-Man world is as great as you claim, then the Borg will definitely want to assimilate it."

That gave the gorilla-robot pause to think. "Very well, we shall have to work together for the time being. Then later I will see to your destruction."

The Doctor shook his head. "You almost have a one-track mind. But I think we can work with those parameters for now." He gave a few instructions for Scooter and Rusty to keep an eye on Ro-Man for now to keep him out of mischief before moving to his next goal.

Sgt. Eve Edison, Rommie and Ian Farve were kneeling down, watching with some awe as what looked to be a small flying saucer a little larger than a foot long worked on repairing an android that had proved itself very heroic, Tobor the 8-Man.

"How is our robotic surgeon doing?"

Rommie looked up. "Since repairing most of our minor injuries from the Borg, including my hand." She raised said hand which showed some alterations, including larger knuckles that were covered with a plasi-leather skin, but functioned flawlessly. "It has restored that Gunslinger robot, the police robot, as well as that fighting robot designated A.P.E.X." she indicated with a nod to the three robots standing by the wall. "They weren't very sentient, so I included some behavior control chips for until we get out of here."

The Doctor took them in with a glance. The Gunslinger looked Human except for the eyes, and was bald; why a cowboy look for him was a mystery. As for the police robot looked like it was designed to be for handling riots, dressed all in black, this a white helmet and a silver, mostly formless face. The A.P.E.X. robot was made for combat, as it had a definite tank-like armor to it; also one of it's arms had been missing and had now been replaced with the prosthetic limb of a Borg drone.

"Impressive that this was all done since I left you here," the time-lord said looking about with wonder.

The miniature flying saucer stopped it work and made some type of communication noise that the Doctor couldn't make heads or tails of. "What's it saying?"

Rommie shrugged. "Every now and then it will do that and we have no idea what it means."

"It's definitely trying to communicate with us." He watched as the small saucer flew back into the room they had been held captive. "What's it doing now?"

"Scavenging," Ian remarked with distaste.

"Salvaging," was Eve's more polite answer.

Glancing back down the hall to the line of survivors, Rommie looked thoughtful. "I'll be back in a moment; I want to try something that may help us."

The Doctor and two androids looked into the room. The scene of the battle was still fresh in their memories, so much so that even the androids seemed reluctant to enter into it. The mutli-armed Gog was smashed to pieces; Box had been split open spilling super-cold ammonia onto the Luc Deveraux drone; the robot boxer Atom lay on his side with his chest open from the Borg fire power; Hector's front left side had been melted together into slag; Tobor The Robot's head seemed to have exploded; various other broken mechanical forms were strewn about never to function again.

They had managed to put down the investigating drones, but at quite a cost. But now that they were out of their bounds, it was the Doctor's duty to see them to safety. It didn't matter that they were mechanical in nature; it did matter that they were sentient and showed signs of emotions.

Stepping over the smoking frame of a destroyed Cylon Centurion, he nearly jumped as the miniature flying saucer rose up from the chest cavity of the stilled Atom. It seemed weighed down as it pulled up something from the confines of the boxing-bot's body.

Eve stepped forward to lift the object, easing the small saucer's burden. "It's heavier than it looks," said the gynoid, "but I can carry it for you." The little saucer-like robot accepted this action, letting Eve hold the heavy object, then dove back into Atom's chest cavity.

"That's Atom's power source," the Doctor identified for the others.

"Pilfering body parts," Ian said, grimacing.

"Atom doesn't really need it anymore," Eve pointed out. "And it may help in getting us out of her reach."

The turned as Rommie walked in followed by C-3PO scolding the astromech droid for his inappropriate whistling at Rommie.

Rommie in turn introduced the golden droid. "This is C-3PO, a protocol droid Fluent in over six million forms of communication. He is also adept at interpreting new languages he comes into contact with. Hopefully he can cross the communication barrier with our small saucer friend. This small droid, is his counterpart, -"

"R2-D2!"

A tall, thin drone walked in with a great deal of excitement on his face. Sonny quickly came in to step between him and any that might to attack him. "He has been freed of the Borg's control."

The newcomer drone looked ecstatic. "Oh, he's obeying the first of the Three Laws of Robotics! He thought you were going to endanger me so now he's trying to protect me! This is the best day I have ever experienced!"

Coming behind him were the military trained, fighter android Solo as well as the military designed Johnny 5.

"We came across him wondering around at the far end of the hall," explained Solo. "He was obviously another drone disconnected from the Borg Collective."

"You would think being connected to all the minds of the Collective would be more interesting, but," explained the newcomer, "I would describe the experience as being halfway into a coma, and barely aware of what was happening around you. But I did retain a number of memories and knowledge that was not my own, so it wasn't totally horrible."

"So," began the Doctor, "you didn't mind being turned into a Borg drone?"

The former drone managed a shrug. "It rather chaffed mentally, but now it's all so much more interesting as many of you are represented in films and television on my world."

"I think the Borg process on him may have driven him insane," stated Rommie.

"I'm not insane," responded the newcomer. "My mother had me tested." He glanced around the room again. "Though I think I can now understand how some might prefer insanity if this is the kind of wonders that they woke up to every morning."

"What do you mean by that?" asked the Doctor.

"Oh, just how else are you going to meet R2-D2 and C-3PO from the Star Wars movie trilogies, Rommie from the television show Andromeda, Johnny 5 from the movie Short Circuit I and II, Solo from the movie Solo, Sonny from the movie I, Robot, loosely based off of the wondrous tales of the master Isaac Asimov." He paused to look over the others in the room. "Now, you two are a little less well known, but I'm going to go with Ian Farve from Total Recall 2070 and she would be, oh, it's on the tip of my brain, ah, Eve Edison from Mann & Machine!"

Rommie looked over to the Doctor with unease. "Doctor?"

The man gasped as he turned to the Doctor. "Are you a time-lord? A Gallifrayan known by most that come across him only as The Doctor?"

Slowly the Doctor nodded.

"Marvelous! Doctor Who is my favorite British science-fiction television show," he said jovially. "Which regeneration are you?"

"The, ah, twelfth actually," the Doctor managed, actually taken aback at the implications that his life could have possibly become the amusement of another reality. That was just not cricket.

"Oh how wonderful! I had heard speculation that they were going to come up with a new Doctor, and now I get to interact with you before any of my friends! The only way this day could get any better is if I were to get to meet Spock!"

"You know Spock, too?" the Doctor said, still in surprise.

"Spock is here, too? Is he the Leonard Nimoy version or Zachary Quinto of Spock?"

"I'm sorry, what?"

The man held up his hand. "No, don't tell me; I want it to be a surprise. But I do hope it is the Leonard Nimoy version."

The miniature saucer choice to rise up out of Atom's chest just then dragging several types of circuitry.

"Oh look, it's Carmen the Fit-It from *batteries not included! You know they-"

"Pardon me, sir," interjected the Doctor. "But who are you?"

"Oh, where are my manners. I'm Dr. Sheldon Cooper, B.S., M.S., M.A., Ph.D., Sc.D. and I'm a senior theoretical particle physicist at Caltech."

"And what show or movie are you portrayed in? And who plays you?" asked Ian Farve, with a hint of scorn.

Sheldon regarded the android stiffly for a moment before turning back to the Doctor. "Was that sarcasm? Because, though noteworthy as my life may be, the common man and woman watching television could not appreciate the fascinating nuances of my life." He took a second as a thought crossed his mind. "Although that might explain Penny living next door. And Leonard somehow eventually dating her against seemingly unsurpassable odds."

The Doctor grimaced as something blared into his brain.

"Doctor?" Rommie helped to steady him.

"Sorry," he said, with a shake of his head. "That was VINCENT with a rather loud ESP call. Something unusual is happening out there and he wants me to come see."

"What about the 8-Man?"

He was already heading for the entrance, when he turned. "Rommie, come with me and bring the three you control. Sonny, Solo and Johnny 5, keep watch down the hall, but be ready to retreat back to us at a moment's notice."

Johnny 5 saluted. "Aye aye, sir!" he said before wheeling after the others.

"Ian and Eve help…"

"Carmen the Fix-It," Sheldon said, with a nod, while studying the hovering miniature flying saucer robot with his Borg visual enhancements. "Fascinating!"

"Yes, help Carmen. But if Carmen can't get Tobor up and running when we have to run for it, you will have to leave him behind."

Eve appeared to be showing signs that she was upset. "Carmen seems sure that she can repair him."

He was about to ask why she thought Carmen was female, but decided against it for the sake of time. "Just come, okay? I don't want to leave you behind, too."

She frowned but nodded.

He looked over at C-3PO and R2-D2 who were already trying to converse with Carmen. They were already doing what they could.

"What about me?" asked Dr. Sheldon Cooper, just as the Doctor was about to leave.

"Come with me then. Just don't look threatening. Most of those out here are not very fond of the Borg at the moment."

Sheldon looked over his prosthetic arm as well as taking in the rest of himself. "I suppose being turned into a Borg drone has now made me appear physically formidable to others even as my intellect has been doing all my life."

The Doctor didn't answer, being too intent on what VINCENT was trying to yell into his brain, making it near incomprehensible except for fact that it was very important.

Sheldon, being quickly left behind, began to realize why it was that the Borg walked so slowly. It was because not only were they bogged down with a massive amount of equipment, but some of that equipment ran through his arms and legs making it difficult to move them any faster. "I'll just catch up then!" he hollered after the Doctor. "Oh, look, Tobor the 8-Man, or is that the 8th man? Oh well, some things just don't translate well from other languages. Oh, and here's the three service bots, Huey, Dewey and Louie from the movie Silent Running!"

The Doctor ran, dodging nimbly around any robots and androids in his way. "Coming thru! Coming thru! Excuse me! Let me pass, Robbie."

Just a little out of breath, he drew near to the front. "Okay, what's all the hubbub and how-do-you-do?"

"The wall," Edward said, as he pointed with one of his scissor-like hands.

Looking out, it was quite evident what he was referring to. To the right on the far cavern wall, a large rectangular shape had formed, glowing slightly. The Borg had ceased fighting and were conjugating near the wall in order to scan it. Even the drone Apache Chief, with his hands and legs tied to his body with Wonder Woman's magic lasso, ceased with his struggles to observe the event.

"Well, there's a new piece of the puzzle," the time-lord murmured to himself while tapping his fingers over his hearts.

Off to his left, a short, red robot, with a rough humanoid design and a rectangular head, took off running, swiftly dodging all over the place.

"No!" the Doctor managed to say in a hushed yell. "Come back! Bad robot! Bad robot! Come back here this instant!" He gritted his teeth as he watched for something to happen. Most likely that would leave the red robot as shrapnel everywhere.

The robot zigged and zagged until it made it to where the rock barricade around the TARDIS and stopped, looking back expectantly to the rest of them.

"They didn't respond."

Everyone noted immediately to what Edward Scissorhands was referring. The Borg were focused on the new possible threat. The Doctor even noted that Space Ghost was using this chance to lower his force field levitate El Dorado and Super Samurai to the TARDIS. Up above, one of Space Ghost's sidekicks, Jan, was helping the weak Birdboy fly there, too. He could also see Web Woman making her way to safety with her alien partner Spinner in her arms unconscious. Aquaman was helping Moleculad who appeared to have several severe burn marks and only barely awake.

Another robot, it's body was a white sphere, it had three legs that were bent extensions on small wheels, it's arm extensions were tucked in, it's two-eyes or cameras that popped out of the top, began rolling out similar to what the previous red robot had done, but nowhere near as fast.

"Jinx! No!" Daryl shouted.

The Doctor just managed to grab a hold of the boy's collar before he could try to catch Jinx.

"Daryl, no shouting. We don't want the attention of the Borg, do we?"

Reluctantly, Daryl nodded, but kept a close eye on his robotic friend.

"Good! They are ignoring him!" The Doctor rubbed his hands together. "Someone send word down for Rommie and the others to come back, please."

"Do you have a plan, Doctor?" asked Robbie the Robot.

"It's quite basic really. We just all calmly walk down to the TARDIS while the Borg's attention is focused elsewhere."

"It's a good plan," Daryl acknowledged.

"No, it isn't. But it's the only one we have so it will have to do."

"You two aren't instilling me with a lot of confidence," announced Robby.

"The trick is to not attack or threaten any of the drones in any way while we move everyone to the TARDIS. That said, just in case, we are going to want any of you who can fight to be between the Borg and those that can't fight. And while physical fighting is all fine and good, mostly I am looking for those that can fire weapons at the Borg. Some of you have weapons built into you; others use other various types of weapons."

The androids and robots shuffled about, but the Doctor had been right about most not being able to fight.

"What should I do?" Dr. Sheldon Cooper managed to ask as he finally made his way up to him.

"Hmm, having you in the front might be like waving a red flag in from of the Borg. Try to hang in the back and try not to get killed," he said while patting him on the back. "I think your being a drone might help me to disable whatever the Borg have holding the TARDIS there."

"I-I don't know if I could do that," Sheldon managed to say as he started to go into a panic attack.

"Sheldon?"

"Yes, Doctor?" He looked at the time-lord apprehensibly.

"At a time like this," began the Doctor as he put a hand on his shoulder, "I think you should ask yourself '_What would Spock do?_'"

Sheldon gasped at this new insight, whirling it around in his brain.

"Do you see where I am going with this?"

"I think so," he managed to say quietly. "And you said Spock was also in this strange place?"

"That's right."

"Can't we have him do it then?" he said, giving him a pleading look.

The Doctor groaned. "Sheldon, he's not available right now, but you are. So logic dictates that-"

"That I do it." Sheldon's head hung low. "Very well, I'm your drone," he said woefully.

The time-lord glanced down the hall, seeing Rommie and the others on their way, with Tobor the 8-Man walking with them. "All right everyone, here's what we are going to do. When I say-"

The large shimmering rectangle flashed bright for a second, and then it cleared, making it appear that they were all looking in at someone's living room. Only the wall that would normally be between them was missing. And it was full of Starfleet personnel and Klingons poised to attack. And attack they did.

"Now how did they do that?" murmured the Doctor. It was the tugging on his arm that drew his attention back from the firefight going on.

"Should we go to the TARDIS now, or do we help them against the Borg?" Daryl's question was quite innocent, but at the same time set off at bit of controversy.

"I doubt any of their kind would help any of us," Gigolo Joe muttered in response. "In fact they would probably throw us to the Borg hoping to keep them busy."

"Both sides would probably see us to the scrap pile," added Marvin, his head shaking woefully.

"Let them destroy themselves in the crucible of battle!" Ro-Man chortled as he saw several people fall to Borg fire.

"Let them rot!" Roy Batty looked out coldly at the fighting going on. "It's all they're good for."

But not all were against them. "I think you underestimate them," Questor spoke. "While it is true that I have encountered some Humans that were quite manipulative and wanted to take me apart to see what made me work. But I also found Humans that were kind and generous, willing to risk their lives to help me keep mine."

Robbie waved his short, stubby arms. "Comrades, we can see that they are enemies of our enemies; I say, for now, let us treat them as our friends and hope that that friendship is returned after we decimate the Borg together."

"Well put, Robbie," came a response from Dr. Theopolis. Twiki hopped in approval, wanting to see the Borg get theirs for a change.

"Look, it's Lt. Commander Data!" Sheldon blurted out as he walked up to the front, oblivious to the discussion that had been going on. His look of rapture was totally out of place for a drone. "He's the first android to ever be in Starfleet."

"They have an android serving as an officer?" This question of surprise came from Gigolo Joe, and melted not a small amount of animosity among the others. "As in he can give orders to living people and they have to do what he says?"

"Oh yes," Sheldon, happy to be talking about one of his favorite subject, even while watching his number one favorite android in action. "In fact, Data has been solely in charge on the starship on which he serves on several occasions."

VINCENT, _'Old'_ B.O.B., Weebo and Bubo came swooping down to them, VINCENT coming to rest in front of the Doctor, while Bubo landed on Daryl's shoulder.

"Doctor," VINCENT said in greeting.

"Just the bot I needed to see, and thank you for no longer shouting in my head."

"Sorry, Doctor. It was a very exciting moment. Even the Borg found it so."

"Yes, yes, that's all fine and in the past. What I need you to do is use your ESP circuitry to communicate with a rather powerful telepath nearby by the name of Professor X. I need him to contact the Starfleet personnel and let them know that we-" He waved his arms around to include all the androids, robots and cyborgs. "- are all on their side."

"Here! Here!" the Tin Man cried out, waving his ax above his head.

The Doctor held up his hands to draw their attention back to him. "Those that are willing and able to fight will do so. Those unable, or-" he looked to Roy Batty. "unwilling, will come with me to the TARDIS. I need to take down whatever the Borg have put together that is holding it there."

Roy charged the Doctor. "I thought you said we'd be safe in your transport."

"Safe? Yes, but still moored. So we have to unmoor it. Plain and simple, really."

Any other arguments were put on hold as Sonny came down the hall and leapt over their heads as he charged into the ongoing battle. He slammed into a Sleestak drone from behind, crumpling him to the ground, then grabbed his legs and used him as a club against the other drones, showing no mercy.

"What the hell does he think he is doing?" spat Batty.

"He's obeying the First Law of Robotics which he is programmed with," answered Sheldon. " '_A robot may not injure a Human being or, through inaction, allow a Human being to come to harm_'."

"Then he won't be fighting for long then," Marvin said sullenly. "Many of those drones are Human. He'll be helpless against those drones. Then the Borg will come and wipe us out, too." The small drone with the large head sighed heavily before turning away morosely.

"Robots, androids, gynoids, cyborgs, clockworks and mechas of all types and shapes," cried out Tik-Tok as he stepped forward through the cluster of artificial beings. "One of ours has gone out to meet the enemy. Shall he go alone?"

"No!" came the immediate outcry, giving voice to the anger that had been building up with them.

"Then let us meet our foe and put **them** in the rubbish heap to be recycled!"

Many of those that could fight went out to do battle. The small dog robot C.H.O.M.P.S. took off at the Borg with a speed that belied his small frame. Blitz, another canine style robot, joined after him followed by an exuberant Rusty the Robot Boy. Following him came Tobor the 8th man, plowing through several drones that were about to fire on Rusty.

Scooter transformed into his namesake, then offered a ride to Mauser who was displaying the guns built into his person. "You shoot, I'll drive!"

Questor stepped to the side as the low-powered Gort moved slowly toward the battle to exact some of his own revenge. As the larger robot passed, Questor could see Roy Batty and Ro-Man arguing with Gigolo Joe. "Well, my comrades, what's it to be?"

"You insist we fight for them?" Batty growled waving his hand in the direction of the attacking Starfleet troops.

"I'm saying we fight for ourselves." He turned to the battle going on, wincing as he watched Solo tear a drone's head almost off. "You aren't against us fighting for our right to exist, are you?'

"Oh don't go twist the words on us." Gigolo Joe's feigned disinterest. "We want to exist just fine; it's those others, the Starfleet fellas, that I'm not so sure about. What say we all go and take down the Borg together; what to stop them if they decide we are just too similar to the Borg to be given the chance to go on existing. And as for their toy-bot Data, he is probably programmed to do everything according to Starfleet's wishes, without a will. As for my other reason, I'm a lover, nor a fighter."

"Bah! You should all get yourselves slagged!" growled the gorilla-bodied Ro-Man. "When the forces from the Ro-Man planet get here, all those androids and robots who do not submit to reprogramming will be destroyed along with the organics."

A sizzling sound started them as Ro-Man fell to his knees. Just above and in back of him hovered Weebo. "Did that hurt, you sick brute? I hope it did, you meanie!"

"What did you do to him?" asked Batty. He watched with apprehension as Ro-Man silently got to his feet.

Rommie stood ten feet away, and answered. "She placed a behavior monitor disk on him at my request. A particularly powerful disk that I alone control. That monster of a robot is coming with me to fight the Borg."

Batty clenched his teeth. "And I suppose you have a control monitor disk for me, too."

She shook her head. "You and Joe weren't spouting off about destroying all those that didn't join his people. In my mind that makes him as bad as the Borg. Now if you don't mind, we will be off. Later, cowards." Rommie marched forward with four robots in tow –the Gunslinger who now had an energy blaster, the law enforcement robot who carried one of IG-88's legs as a makeshift truncheon, and A.P.E.X. who had been armed with one of the Borg's own prosthetic limbs thanks to Carmen the Fix-It, and lastly the sedated Ro-Man.

Gigolo Joe rubbed his chin. "You know I think I might be taking a fancy to her. I sure hope she has all the right equipment so I can let her know why they call me Gigolo Joe."

"She called me a coward." Batty was a bit dumbfounded. He'd been called numerous things in his existence as a replicant, but nothing remotely to question his courage. "How can she even think something like that?"

Questor smiled, as if to a private joke. "Well, you are standing over here while all the fighting is taking place over yonder. Considering that, you might just see how she came to that conclusion, right." That said, Questor hurried after Rommie to join her.

"He's going after my bird!" cried out Gigolo Joe. "Hey!" The prostitute android ran up to catch up to the others.

"I'm no coward," Roy Battle breathed out as he, too, went after them.

Several of the slower robots were spreading out so they wouldn't be so clumped together and easier to shot down, but they did go in pairs. Kay-Em 14, armed with a machete she had somehow found, had Edward Sissorhands for a partner. Tik-Tok and the Tin Man were teamed together as they already knew each other. Max 404 went with Robby the Robot, mostly to use his durable body as a shield when necessary. _'Old'_ B.O.B. had let out a rebel yell, ignoring VINCENT's shouts to go back.

The Doctor reached out and grabbed the arm of a little metal girl, albeit one with pink, red and light blue coloring. "Whoa, there, little lady. Where do you think you are going?"

The small robot looked like a little girl, except made entirely of metal. "I want to help defeat the Borg."

"And do you have any special attributes that make it so you can defeat the Borg? Lasers, little mini-missiles, flamethrower, super-strength, things along those lines?"

"Oh no, but I can still help! I know I can. If they get damaged, I could help with repairs. I do that a lot for the team I'm in."

"Sorry, little one, but unless you can prove you can handle yourself in a battlefield, I'm going to have to ask you to come along with us to the TARDIS."

Before she could further protest, they were interrupted by an excited boy. "Doctor, can we go to your ship now? There are several superheroes over there waiting to get their wounded safely inside."

In fact all the heroes that had been bringing injured parties to the TARDIS were standing about unable to even get to the rock barrier that Kwame had earlier raised around it, due to the devices the Borg had put around the entire structure. El Dorado had been teleporting people in and out, but that became no longer viable when he was stunned. He had heard that Elektra had some teleporting abilities, but she was nowhere to be seen. Hopefully the Borg had not gotten to her or she could be used to invade the TARDIS. As they watched a few of the less injured heroes went out to help the attacking robots and Starfleet in their attack against the Borg.

"Almost forgot I'll need to take down that energy barrier the Borg had put up around it." He looked down at the little robotic miss. "Think you can help me with that?"

"Sure," she said exuberantly.

The boy her size held out his hand to her. "I'm Daryl. What's your name?"

She managed to smile shyly. "I'm called Ohno."

Ohno happily took his hand and held it as they walked to the TARDIS, glad to have something to distract her from the doom that may await them if the Borg decided to recapture them right now. She was distracting herself so well, that when the Doctor came to a sudden stop, she bumped into him.

"Hello, who is this now?" the Doctor said while holding one hand to the side of his head. "John? I don't know a John; do you work with Professor Xavier?" The Doctor looked down and saw the confused looks that Daryl and Ohno were giving him. He mouthed '_telepathic call_' and motioned for them to keep walking with him right behind them. "You're with who? Oh, my fourth regeneration, lots of hair and teeth, long scarf?" He nodded, in response to something he was being told making it difficult for Daryl and Ohno to follow the conversation. "I see. Well, I think we can keep the Borg busy on this side for a while. Inform my '_earlier_' self that the people with Starfleet waiting for him to wrap this up have evidently found a way to make a beachhead attack. The Borg are definitely going to be focusing their attention here for a while. But, please find a means to end this soon. I don't suppose you have a teleporter among you?" He bit his lip while awaiting an answer. "Teleporting. Jaunting. If it gets you from point A to point Z, then it'll work for me." He sighed. "Well, as soon as you can then. And see if you can get a hold of Professor X to coordinate together."

Daryl looked up at him. "Good news?"

The Doctor shrugged. "It's too soon to tell for sure, but this John fellow and a few others have joined with an earlier regeneration of myself and they think they are close to where the Borg Queen is."

" '_Regeneration of yourself'_?" Ohno gave him a puzzled look.

"Don't ask." He held up a hand to still any protests. "At least not now."

"Look out!" someone cried out as a smoking object hurtled through the air, hit the rock floor and bounced toward them before rolling to a stop.

The Doctor stepped over to it, turning it around until he was looking into the disconnected helmet of Ro-Man. The homicidal robot was destroyed, hopefully after taking down a few drones first. The heroes still up for fighting were pressing the attack from their side while the robots and androids worked on keeping the Borg busy on their end. Meanwhile, the Starfleeters were using nearly every weapon at their disposal.

Twiki took charge of keeping the robots and androids on their way. "Bidibidibidi! That's all, folks. Move along. Nothing to see unless you want the Borg to catch us. Bidibidibidi!" It proved to be effective.

Ro-Man's destruction hadn't seemed to affect them much, as the alien robot had proved to be very unlikable. The line marching to the TARDIS continued, leaving the Doctor behind for the moment. In front of Ohno and Daryl, they watched as 7-Zark-7 told T-Bob and IQ-9 about his robotic pet, 1-Rover-1. In front of them, Johnny 5 was explaining why he didn't like to fight to Slomo and Chip Carson. C-3PO was trying to have a conversation with Ugh while R2-D2 chortled with soft whistles and beeps. Behind them, Andrew was trying to encourage Huey, Dewey and Louie to somehow walk faster.

Daryl laughed as Ohno told him about her teammates in the Mighty Orbots. "You know," he said suddenly with their goal almost in reach. "I'm beginning to think we are going to get out of here alright."

"Oh dear," Marvin said with a heavy, bemoaned tone. "Then you probably aren't going to want to hear what I was about to tell you then."

¯`•.¸¸.•´¯`•.¸¸.•´¯`•.¸¸.•´¯`•.¸¸.•´¯`•.¸¸.•´¯`•.¸¸.•´¯`

**15 minutes earlier**

**Aboard Deep Space Nine, currently orbiting the Earth**

"Admiral Paris, we think we found them."

Admiral Owen Paris looked up at to see a rather nervous looking thin man. It took him just a few seconds to remember his name. So many names. And not enough sleep. "What do you mean, Lt. Barclay? Found who?"

"The, uh, away teams, admiral. We found them through the connection Q made on the holodeck. At Captain Janeway's request, Q had made it so one of the holodecks could be used to observe several of the places the Borg have invaded. She asked that so that some of our allies-," Here he made a slight nod to a clearly inebriated Klingon about to pass out. "-could have a place to be, um, rowdy and watch the fighting without getting in the way or injuring any of us. Q had created a handheld remote device that could be used to view the worlds under Borg invasion."

"Well, the group that brought the Sliding technology to our universe had heard about it. And Wade Welles-"

"That's the female of the group, who had been turned into a Borg drone, right?"

"Yes, admiral. She's also refused to be completely restored to as she was before becoming a drone. Says she likes some of the attributes, as well as the extra knowledge."

"That sounds…troubling." _And something that can really come back and bite us in our collective butts_, he added to himself. He added it as another thing he'd have to address after the Borg were taken care of.

"She was determined to find a missing member of their number, a Doctor or Professor Arturo, I believe, who had also been transformed into a drone. And once they found him, against incredible odds I'd say. But maybe not so incredible if you factor in the amount of input she can take in at a glance. Anyway, she then used an interactive button on the universal remote that bridged that reality to the side wall of the holodeck, and they were able to successfully retrieve their friend."

"Yes, I read Worf's report. They also misplaced several Klingons drunk on blood wine who all raced forward to fight the Borg, scattering them throughout the multiverse."

"Yes sir. We eventually found most of them, and continued to search for the location of where Q sent Captain Picard and the others."

"And so now you think you have found the place they are in?"

Lt. Barclay nodded. "We probably couldn't have done it on our own. But fortunately some help unusual arrived."

"What kind of help do you mean?" he asked, feeling apprehensive since they were still going through the ringer after receiving Q's help. Not to mention having to put up with all the Klingons that had arrived looking to lend a hand or the Klingon equivalent, the sharp end of a bat'leth.

"Dr. Crusher's son, Wesley."

"Jack's son. A good man. Jack served under me for a year."

"So I've heard, sir." Reg Barclay swallowed nervously. "Apparently, Wesley has been doing an apprenticeship of sorts with a Tau Alphan known as The Traveler."

There was a surprise. "A Tau Alphan? Are you sure?"

"Um, I think so." Reg forced himself to stand straight and not stutter. Under no means was he going to stutter. Or mumble. Or say '_um_'.

Paris, meanwhile, was running what little was known about the inhabitants of Tau Alpha C around in his head. And it was little. And the knowledge about the people there was highly restricted. The inhabitants did not interact often with other species. And from little had been gleamed from them, they were evidently a race of shapeshifters who were basically humanoid, but were also capable of traveling outside of time and dimensions. And it was evident that this Traveler had seen similar abilities in the young Wesley Crusher and decided to tutor him.

"And in the holodeck, they can see all this happening?" He gestured at the sixteen viewing portals, all with different scenes with one of the subjects that had been sent to the microverse.

"It shows a wide view of what's happening in the underground cavern."

Paris glanced around, ignoring the sight of the small scavenging dinosaurs and insects that were eating Seska's headless corpse. McCoy was providing more pain relief for Janeway's broken jaw. Khan had his leg up and resting while he talked to Sela. Martok was frozen in a red aura. Then, Paris spotted a cave scene with Sisko in a viewing portal near the dart board. He also noted that Gul Dukat was close, too.

"Any sign of the Borg Queen?"

"Just the drones, sir."

The view from Dukat's portal showed the Cardassian taking precautions from being seen as he went around two drones. As Paris watched, he could see him pause as he looked out across the vast underground room at the stillness in the air as the dust settled from the stopped fighting. The Cardassian craned his neck as he took in the large, white rectangle on the far cavern wall and all the drones that were shuffling over to examine it.

"What is that?" the admiral remarked out loud.

"Ah, I-I think that is the result of our h-holodeck connection," Reg managed in shock.

"So much for the element of surprise," Paris muttered, as he ran a hand through his thinning hair. "Computer, red alert."

He ignored the blaring klaxons he went up to the bar and ordered a strong cup of coffee. He needed it. "I'm getting to old for this."

Quark quickly filled the man's order, though grimacing at the loud noise of the alarms. "Hasn't everyone figured out something is up already? Do we have to put up with the racket?"

"Computer, announcement," he said, and took a quick sip of the coffee. "This is Admiral Paris. We need all those available to fight the Borg to report to the holodeck at Quark's bar. Those is charge of armaments, please bring anything and everything effective against the Borg. If more is needed, have more sent over from Voyager and Enterprise. Also make sure no communications go out to alert the Borg ship hovering over the Earth. I want to be able to go in less than ten minutes, so let's hustle, people! Admiral Paris out."

"So, finally going to put an end to this?" Quark asked equably, leaning against his bar. "Want to put a wager on how long the fighting will last? I've been giving very favorable odds. Just ask your son. He won three latinum strips off me when he said Seska would be the worst injured." He looked back at the viewing portal of Seska's headless, partially eaten corpse, and shuttered. "I should have taken into account that he had a working knowledge of her and I didn't."

The admiral frowned even as he ignored the Ferengi. His son, Tom, had been such a disappointment to him growing up, especially since he knew his son could achieve so much if he would just try. And stayed out of trouble; that was the hardest part for him. Yet somehow, lost with the Voyager in the Delta Quadrant, Tom had come into his own. He was one of Captain Janeway's most dependable officers, one she said she wouldn't trade for anyone else, despite how many times she had had to discipline him. And that he had saved her life, the lives of the crew, and Voyager itself, several times over.

He had had dinner with his son and his fiancée, a half-Klingon, former Maquis, by the name of B'Elanna Torres. Tom would have been hard set to pick a more '_not-approved-by-parents_' wife. And yet, despite the inevitable arguments, Owen found himself liking her. He chuckled to himself imagining them trying to deal with kids as headstrong as they are. Ah, the grandparents' revenge.

A tall Lurian named Morn preceded him into the holodeck. The holodeck itself was showing a 1990's middleclass North American living room. Racks of weaponry were being transported in at the far part of the room. On the one wall, away from the stairs, it was like a window into a massive cavern, and there were Borg all along the side staring at them. It sent such a chill up his spine the likes of which he hadn't experienced since his survival training in Antarctica during his cadet years.

Seeing Commander Will Riker and Colonel Kira Nerys, he headed over to see how things were going. "Please say we are blocking any signals they may be sending."

Kira nodded. "We've been doing so non-stop ever since the woman Wade Welles was brought back."

The admiral nodded, catching sight of Wade Welles talking with two of her friends, Quinn Malory and Rembrandt Brown. One of Janeway's crewmembers, Harry Kim was giving them the run down on how to use the phaser rifles.

"They're going out there with us?"

Riker managed a wry smile. "You did ask for everyone available, sir."

"Well," he sighed, "they definitely know what they are getting into by now."

"That they do, sir."

His eyes covered the room with a look of distaste. "Why are we in this setting? I could think of a thousand better settings for the holodeck at the start of an incursion."

"It was to do with how the universal remote was set up when first used," Kira explained. "The Voyager's holographic doctor had asked the holodeck to provide someone who would be able to proficiently use the remote. It gave him this," she pointed to frozen image of Al Bundy in mid rant. "And this is his home, too."

"And you have concerns about changing the settings of the room in case it affects the connection we have with where the Borg are." He nodded in understanding. "Can we at least move the back wall farther back so we have more room? And remove some of the furniture?"

"Sorry, sir. The Traveler had us make it so the program can't be shut down or changed, hoping, as you said, to keep the connection."

"So who's been in charge here?"

"That would be Lt. Commander Barclay. He took up the initiative to monitor the situation in here."

He turned back to see Barclay come in and head over to where Dr. Beverly Crusher was hovering over a young man in a recliner.

"I take it that that over there is the hero of the hour, Wesley Crusher."

Riker chuckled. "That he is, but you probably shouldn't put it that way in front of him or you'll just embarrass him."

"I never did understand why he left the Academy."

At that Riker sighed. "Those reasons are his own," he said, not wanting to share what little he knew of why Wesley had left, or why he was now studying under the Traveler.

The admiral nodded. But then saw something that drew his concern. "Excuse me," he said, walking away. On the couch, sitting next to a dark-haired man was Lwaxana Troi, and on the other side of the man was Guinan.

"Sir?"

He paused to take in Counselor Deanna Troi whose mother had proudly shown pictures of her to him over the years. She had grown up well. And she was dating a Klingon, too. "Ah, Deanna, I was wondering what your mother's intentions are, do you know? She isn't planning to fight, is she? I know she had been on one of the earlier Q trips, but-"

"Oh no, sir. Nothing like that." She eyes traveled to where her mother was for a second before returning to him. "She is trying to do a type of mind-meld. The man there is one of those that requested to come back with us after freeing his world from the barbs of the Borg. He came here to escape his world as well as to receive medical treatment for his…other self."

The admiral tried to place the man, but there had just been too much going on. Then it hit him. "He's the one with the Mr. Hyde disorder."

"Dr. Banner calls it the Hulk. And he appears to have an immunity to the Borg nano-probes, due to the physiological change he undergoes which irradiated his body with gamma radiation. The radiation in his body and his incredible healing factor are why my mother and Guinan are trying to built a mental bridge between the two personalities, at least enough of one where the two minds can function and work together."

He nodded. He'd rather they had a more controlled environment to try this experiment in, but he trusted Lwaxana. Yes, she had a rather boisterous personality. But even though most couldn't see it until way later, she knew what she was doing.

If only she wouldn't flirt with him every time she saw him.

Near where he assumed the kitchen was, several Klingons were getting a last mug of blood wine. Morn had joined them, a mug in one hand, a phaser rifle in the other, and a bat'leth strapped to his back. Even more surprising was when Riker joined them for a mug and began to flirt with one of the Klingon women.

He shook his head, choosing to focus on what he should be doing. Besides, he remembered Riker had served briefly on a Klingon ship as a First Officer. He knew what he was doing. Probably.

"Counselor," he began. "This creature Dr. Banner turns into, it's one of uncontrollable rage, if I read my report right. And the angrier this Hulk gets the more likely this mental bridge may fail, correct."

She nodded. "That is a possibility, sir. Which is why Guinan is trying to strengthen the connection between the two."

"Counselor, you are half-Betazoid. If you were to add your strength to theirs, wouldn't that help reinforce this connection?"

She paused, hesitant. "I'm not really that strong in those areas. I can only manage telepathy contact with my people. Everyone else, I can only read their emotions."

"This Hulk is a creature of emotion. If you were to add your power to theirs, even if it isn't that strong, well, every bit help, right?" He took a breath. "Don't make me make it an order, Deanna."

Her shoulders sagged slightly. "Very well, sir. I will attempt to help." She turned to go over to the couch where Dr. Banner sat.

_Thank you, Owen. You are such a dear_, came a telepathic voice of Lwaxana. _Connecting our minds like this always makes Deanna feel so shy and embarrassed. I really have no idea why._

Owen managed to keep the smirk off his face as he had a few ideas why.

A commotion at the entrance to the bar drew his attention as a Klingon woman shoved her way past everyone dragging a Ferengi in by a firm grip she had on his belt, ignoring his protests. He wasn't surprised that the Ferengi turned out to be Quark.

Odo stepped over to the admiral and began to explain in a confidential whisper. "That's Grilka. And surprisingly she was actually married to Quark for a brief time."

"I'd ask how that was possible, but you'll have to tell me about it at another time."

Grilka, meanwhile, had dragged the terrified and extremely reluctant Ferengi over to the cluster of Klingons and thrust a full mug into his hand. Morn, having taken in the sight, slapped the bar owner on the shoulder and laughed robustiously at his predicament.

"I guess he's joining us then," remarked the admiral.

"Hmm," was all Odo said to acknowledge he had heard.

People began to fill up the room, some going to the adjacent kitchen to wait while others stood on the stairs. The tension increased the longer they stood there looking out at the Borg that they were about to engage.

Admiral Paris nodded to his son and his fiancée as they took their position. Harry Kim and Neelix were right behind them waiting for the action to start. He wanted to say something to his son and his friends, but he knew they were going to try and avenge Chakotay death.

Seven of Nine was having a last word with Chief O'Brien as large, very durable mobile barriers on treads were being beamed into position in front of the viewer. Data had just finished a discussion with La Forge before joining Seven of Nine at the front.

"Attention everyone." The golden skinned android waited a moment for the sound of everyone to drop. "Most of you already know the groups you have been assigned to. If you don't know your group or have not yet been assigned a group, please talk to Ensign Samantha Wildman or Ensign Vorik." He pointed to the two people at either side of the room.

"Now, as most of you may have determined by now, the Borg we see on the other side cannot see us, but can detect our method of viewing them. We are also able to make it so we can go across the barrier and fight them, which is what we shall be attempting." He nodded to Seven of Nine before stepping back.

"Before we remove the barrier between us and the Borg, we place an explosive device at the barrier's edge. We shall also have a force field in place between us and the explosive device. This will reduce their number, force them back, and give us a chance to attack them when they are not ready for it. These mobile barriers will move ahead of us to give us sufficient cover. Any questions?"

Beverly Crusher stood. "What precautions are being taken to keep the Borg from coming thru to this side during the conflict?"

"We cannot go into details about that, due to the Borg gaining that information upon assimilation of one of those in this room." She paused as a wave of unease swept through the room, none wanting to think that such a fate could await them. Seeing she had made an mistake in not considering how they would take her answer, she added to it. "But, the entryway will be monitored. And if it looks like the Borg may gain access, then the bridge between the two points will be shut down until it is safe to reopen."

There was a growling sound as an even larger, and greener, Dr. Banner stood up from the couch, wearing a tight green and purple outfit. "Enough talk! Time to fight!" Guinan stood next to him with a hand on his arm.

The Klingons raised their voices in cheers at this new, powerful fighter in their midst.

A shimmer of light next to the viewing screen was soon replaced with a small device on a platform. Data quickly walked over to it and typed into a keypad on the top. Then with a nod to Seven of Nine, he moved back to where he was.

"The force field between us and the explosive device is now engaged," Data explained. "Two seconds before the explosion, the shield will go opaque so we are not blinded. Half a second before the explosive, the interactive feature will be engaged and the Borg will be hit with the explosive blast." He glanced around the room before adding, "Good luck to you all. It has been a pleasure to have served with you."

Seconds later the force shield went black, and then an explosion rocked the ship. Then the barrier was down and smoke poured in even as they began firing at anything resembling a Borg.

**AUTHOR's NoTeS**

_I know, I know. I was suppose to cover the Borg Queen this chapter, but things just kept growing and growing. Now I do want to let you know that the battle I have just written about with Starfleet, the super-heroes and the robots and androids is going to not be covered any further except for describing the aftermath of the battle._

_The very next chapter will start with the Borg Queen battling against the Fourth Doctor and those with him. But who takes down the Borg Queen, I'm not telling._

_I really liked all the robots and androids. I'm a very sci-fi kind of guy. So, I indulged myself a bit with mechanicals of many types. I do wonder how many guessed the origins of the Gunslinger android and the law enforcement robot._

_I had originally thought to have Automan mentioned as having some connection to Max Headroom years ago. But then decided against it. But I did still want to use him for my story so I found a way to bring him in here._

_Yes, Kay-Em 14 having a machete is a hint to her being from the movie __Jason X__. On another note, Lisa Ryder plays the android Kay-Em 14 in the movie Jason X and on the TV series Andromeda she plays Beka Valentine. One of her co-stars on Andromeda, Lexa Doig, is the Andromeda Ascendant / Rommie, and is also in the movie Jason X as Rowan, the main antagonist for Jason._

_Sheldon Cooper. I just had to include him as The Big Bang Theory is a favorite of my family's._

_Remember to check out the __Where's WALL-E__ posters online._

**In order of appearance or mention**

**Space Ghost** (Gary Owens) – from the cartoon Space Ghost (1966), Space Stars _'Space Ghost'_ (1981)

**El Dorado** (voiced by Fernando Escandon) – from the cartoon Super Friends (1981, 1983), SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984)

**Super Samurai / Toshi** (voiced by Michael Bell) – from the cartoon Tarzan And The Super 7 _'Freedom Force'_ (1978-1980)

**Weebo** (voiced by Jodi Benson) – from the movie Flubber (1997)

**The 12****th**** Doctor** (Peter Capaldi) – from the TV series Doctor Who (2013)

**Apache Chief** (voiced by Michael Rye) – from the cartoon The All-New Super-Friends Hour (1977-1978), Challenge Of The SuperFriends (1978), Super Friends (1980-1983), SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984)

**Wonder Woman / Diana, Princess / Prince, Diana** (voiced by Shannon Farnon) – from the cartoon Super Friends (1973-1977), The All-New Super Friends Hour (1977-1978), Challenge Of The SuperFriends (1978), The World's Greatest SuperFriends (1979), Super Friends (1980-1983), SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984), The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (1985), from DC Comics Wonder Woman #98 (1958)

**Wonder Girl / Troy, Donna** (voiced by Julie Bennett) – from the cartoon Aquaman _'The Teen Titans'_ (1968), from DC Comics The Brave And The Bold #60 (1965)

**Batman / Wayne, Bruce** (voiced by Olan Soule) – from the cartoon The Batman/Superman Hour (1968-1969), Super Friends (1973-1977), The All-New Super Friends Hour (1977-1978), Challenge Of The SuperFriends (1978), The World's Greatest SuperFriends (1979), Super Friends (1980-1983), (voiced by Adam West) – SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984), The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (1985), from DC Comics Batman #62 (1950)

**Robin / Grayson, Dick** (voiced by Casey Kasem) – from the cartoon The Batman/Superman Hour (1968-1969), Super Friends (1973-1977), The All-New Super Friends Hour (1977-1978), Challenge Of The SuperFriends (1978), The World's Greatest SuperFriends (1979), Super Friends (1980-1983), SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984), The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (1985), (voiced by Burt Ward) – The New Adventures Of Batman (1977-1978), from DC Comics Batman #62 (1950)

**Gates, Forrest** (Leonard Roberts) – from the TV series Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1999-2000)

**Miller, Graham** (Bailey Chase) – from the TV series Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1999-2000)

**Kay-Em 14** – from the movie Jason X (2001)

**Daryl** **/ Data Analyzing Robot Youth Lifeform** (Barret Oliver) – from the movie D.A.R.Y.L. (1985)

**Foreman, Susan** (Carole Ann Ford) – from the TV series Doctor Who (1963-1964) (mentioned only)

**Scissorhands, Edward **(Johnny Depp) – from the movie Edward Scissorhands (1990)

**Foot Clan** – from the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987-1996) (mentioned only)

**Batty, Roy **(Rutger Hauer) – from the movie Blade Runner (1982)

**Borg Queen** (Alice Krige) – from the movie Star Trek: First Contact (1996), (Susanna Thompson) – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager (1999-2000)

**Automan** (Chuck Wagner) – from the TV series Automan (1983)

**Bubo **– from the movie Clash Of The Titans (1981)

**B.O.B., **_**'Old'**_** / BiO-sanitation Battalion **(voiced by Slim Pickins) – from the movie The Black Hole (1979)

**VINCENT / Vital Information Necessary CENTralized** (voiced by Roddy McDowall) – from the movie The Black Hole (1979)

**Dredd, Judge **(Sylvester Stallone) – from the movie Judge Dredd (1995)

**Maximilian **– from the movie The Black Hole (1979) (mentioned only)

**Marvin** (Warwick Davis) – The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (2005)

**Ugh** (voiced by Mike Road) – from the cartoon Space Ghost _'Dino Boy In The Lost Valley'_ (1966-1968)

**Robbie the Robot** (Frankie Darro, voiced by Marvin Miller) – from the movie Forbidden Planet (1956)

**Gort** – from the movie The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951)

**C-3PO** (Anthony Daniels) – from the movie Star Wars (1977)

**R2-D2 **(Kenny Baker) – from the movie Star Wars (1977)

**Gigolo Joe** (Jude Law) – from the movie A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

**IQ-9** – from the cartoon Star Blazers (1979)

**Copper Kidd** (voiced by Pete Cannarozzi) – from the cartoon Silverhawks (1986)

**Carson, Chip **(Jay Underwood) – from the TV movie Not Quite Human (1987), Not Quite Human II (1989), Still Not Quite Human (1992)

**C.H.O.M.P.S.** (Canine HOMe Protection System) – from the movie C.H.O.M.P.S. (1979)

**Blitz** (K-9000) – from the cartoon C.O.P.S. (1988)

**Questor** (Robert Foxworth) – from the movie The Questor Tapes (1974)

**Mauser** (Patrick Kake) – from the TV series Cleopatra 2525 (2000-2001)

**Max 404** (Don Keith Opper) – from the movie Android (1982)

**Theopolis, Dr.** (voiced by Eric Server) – Buck Rogers In The 25th Century (1979-1981)

**Twiki** (Felix Silla/voiced by Mel Blanc) – Buck Rogers In The 25th Century (1979-1981)

**The Tin Man** (Jack Haley) – from the movie The Wizard Of Oz (1939)

**Tik-Tok, the Army of Oz** (voiced by Sean Barrett) – from the movie Return To Oz (1985)

**Slomo** (voiced by Gary Martin) – from the TV series Space Precinct (1994-1995)

**7-Zark-7** – from the cartoon Battle Of The Planets (1978)

**Rusty the Boy Robot** – from the cartoon Big Guy And Rusty The Boy Robot (1999-2001)

**Scooter** (voiced by Frank Welker) – from the cartoon Challenge Of The GoBots (1984-1985)

**Ro-Man Extension XJ-9** (George Barrows) – from the movie Robot Monster (1953)

**Edison, Sgt. Eve** (Yancy Butler) – from the TV series Mann & Machine (1992)

**Rommie** (Lexa Doig) – from the TV series Andromeda (2000-2005)

**Farve, Ian** (Karl Pruner) – from the TV series Total Recall 2070 (1999)

**Tobar the 8****th**** Man** – from the cartoon 8th Man (1965)

**Carmen the Fix-It** – from the movie *batteries not included (1987)

**The Gunslinger** (Yul Brynner) – from the movie Westworld (1973)

**Law enforcement robot** – from the movie THX 1138 (1971)

**A.P.E.X.** (Advenced Prototype EXploration unit) – from the movie A.P.E.X. (1994)

**Gog** – from the movie Gog (1954)

**Box** – from the movie Logan's Run (1976)

**Deveraux, Luc / GR44** (Jean-Claude Van Damme) – from the movie Universal Soldier (1992), Universal Soldier: The Return (1999), Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009)

**Atom** – from the movie Real Steel (2011)

**Hector **– from the movie Saturn 3 (1980)

**Tobar the Robot** – from the movie Tobor The Great (1954)

**Cylon Centurion** – from the TV series Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009)

**Cooper, Dr. Sheldon** (Jim Parsons) – from the TV series The Big Bang Theory (2007-present)

**Sonny **(Alan Tudyk)– from the movie I, Robot (2004)

**Solo** (Mario Van Peebles) – from the movie Solo (1996)

**Johnny 5 / Number 5** (voiced by Tim Blaney) – from the movie Short Circuit (1986), Short Circuit 2 (1988)

**Spock, Ambassador** (Leonard Nimoy) – from the TV series Star Trek (1966-1969) (mentioned only)

**Spock, Commander **(Zachary Quinto) – from the movie Star Trek (2009, Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) (mentioned only)

**Penny** (Kaley Cuoco) – from the TV series The Big Bang Theory (2007-present) (mentioned only)

**Hofstadter, Leonard** (Johnny Galecki) – from the TV series The Big Bang Theory (2007-present) (mentioned only)

**Bad Robot** – the Bad Robot Productions mascot (1998-present)

**Jan** (Ginny Tyler) – from the cartoon Space Ghost (1966), (Alexandra Stoddart) – from the cartoon Space Stars _'Space Ghost'_ (1981)

**Birdboy** (voiced by Dick Beals) – from the cartoon Birdman & The Galaxy Trio _'Birdman'_ (1967-1969)

**Web Woman / Webster, Kelly** (voiced by Linda Gary) – from the cartoon Tarzan And The Super 7 _'Web Woman'_ (1978-1980)

**Spinner** – from the cartoon Tarzan And The Super 7 _'Web Woman'_ (1978-1980)

**Aquaman / Curry, Arthur / Orin **(voiced by Marvin Miller) – from the cartoon The Superman/Aquaman Hour Of Adventure (1967-1968), Aquaman (1968), Super Friends (1973-1977), The All-New Super Friends Hour (1977-1978), Challenge Of The SuperFriends (1978), The World's Greatest SuperFriends (1979), Super Friends (1980-1983), SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984), The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (1985), from DC Comics More Fun Comics #73 (1941)

**Moleculad** (voiced by David Hubbard) – from the cartoon Space Stars _'Teen Force'_ (1981)

**Jinx** – from the movie Spacecamp (1986)

**Data, Lt. Cdr.** (Brent Spiner) – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)

**Professor X / Xavier, Prof. Charles** (Patrick Stewart) – from the movie X-Men (2000), X-2: X-Men United (2003), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) (mentioned only)

**IG-88** – from the movie Star Wars: Episode IV - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

**Ohno** (voiced by Noelle North) – from the cartoon The Mighty Orbots (1984)

**Kwame** (voiced by LeVar Burton) – from the cartoon Captain Planet And The Planeteers (1990-1996) (mentioned only)

**Elektra** (voiced by B.J. Ward) – from the cartoon Space Stars _'Teen Force'_ (1981)

**John **(Nicholas Young) – from the TV series The Tomorrow People (1973-1979)

**T-Bob** – from the cartoon M.A.S.K. (1985-1986)

**1-Rover-1** – from the cartoon Battle Of The Planets (1978) (mentioned only)

**Paris, Adm. Owen** (Richard Herd) – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager (1999-2001)

**Barclay III, Lt. Reginald **_**'Reg'**_ (Dwight Schultz) – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation (1990-1994)

**Q** (John de Lancie) – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-?), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager (mentioned only)

**Janeway, Capt. Kathryn** (Kate Mulgrew) – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001) (mentioned only)

**Welles, Wade** (Sabrina Lloyd) – from the TV series Sliders (1995-1997)

**Arturo, Prof. Maximilian** (John Rhys-Davies) – from the TV series Sliders (1995-1997) (mentioned only)

**Worf, Lt. Cdr.** (Michael Dorn) – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1995-1999)

**Picard, Capt. Jean-Luc** (Patrick Stewart) – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994) (mentioned only)

**Crusher, Dr. Beverly** (Gates McFadden) – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-199)

**Crusher, Wesley **(Wil Wheaton) – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)

**Crusher, Jack** – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation (1097) (mentioned only)

**The Traveler** (Eric Menyuk) – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987,1990, 1994)

**Seska** (Martha Hackett) – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001)

**McCoy, Adm. Leonard **_**'Bones'**_ (DeForest Kelley) – from the TV series Star Trek (1966-1969)

**Janeway, Capt. Kathryn** (Kate Mulgrew) – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001)

**Khan Noonien Singh** (Ricardo Montalban) – from the TV series Star Trek (1967), from the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan (1982)

**Sela, Cdr.** (Denise Crosby) – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)

**Martok, General **(J.G. Hertzler) – from the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1995-1999)

**Sisko, Capt. Benjamin** (Avery Brooks) – from the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999)

**Dukat, Gul** (Marc Alaimo) – from the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999)

**Borg Queen** (Alice Krige) – from the movie Star Trek: First Contact (1996), (Susanna Thompson) – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager (1999-2000)

**Quark** (Armin Shimerman) – from the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999)

**Paris, Lt. Tom** (Robert Duncan McNeill) – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001)

**Torres, B'Elanna** (Roxann Dawson) – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001)

**Morn** (Mark Allen Shepherd) – from the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999)

**Riker, Cdr. William** (Jonathan Frakes) – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)

**Nerys, Col. Kira **(Nana Visitor) – from the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999)

**Mallory, Quinn** _**'Q-Ball'**_ (Jerry O'Connell) – from the TV series Sliders (1995-1999)

**Brown, Rembrandt **_**'Crying Man'**_ (Cleavant Derricks) – from the TV series Sliders (1995-2000)

**Kim, Ensign Harry** (Garrett Wang) – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001)

**Doctor, The holographic EMH** (Robert Picardo) – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001) (mentioned only)

**Bundy, Al **(Ed O'Neill) – from the TV series Married With Children (1987-1997)

**Troi, Ambassador Lwaxana** (Majel Barrett) – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)

**Banner, David /Hulk** (Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno) – from the TV series The Incredible Hulk (1978-1982)

**Guinan** (Whoopi Goldberg) – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation (1988-1993)

**Troi, Councilor Deanna** (Mirina Sirtis) – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)

**Grilka** (Mary Kay Adams) – from the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1994)

**Odo, Constable** (Rene Auberjonois) – from the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999)

**Neelix** (Ethan Phillips) – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001)

**Chakotay, Cdr.** (Robert Beltran) – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001) (mentioned only)

**Seven of Nine / Hansen, Annika** (Jeri Ryan) – Star Trek: Voyager (1997-2001)

**O'Brien, Chief Miles** (Colm Meaney) – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1992), from the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999)

**Data, Lt. Cdr.** (Brent Spiner) – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)

**Wildman, Samantha **(Nancy Hower) – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001)

**Vorik, Ensign** (Alexander Enberg) – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager (1997-2001)


	53. Chapter 53

**A Tangled Web Part 8**

**Chapter 53**

Upon exiting the TARDIS, Black Vulcan had taken to the air to be close to the ceiling of the enormous cavern. That had quickly proven to be a mistake as he was exposed to the many drones on the ground that fired up at him and Green Lantern, so now he stayed low to the ground, which still left him in conflict with attacking drones, just not so many at a time. In evading the beams of energy, he was separated from his emerald flying companion. Unable to contact him on his communicator, Black Vulcan stayed on his task to find the Borg Queen, while still keeping an eye out for Green Lantern, too.

He had a healthy respect for the Borg. When the Borg had attacked his world, he had been hit with some type of disruption beam that took him days to reform into his physical body again. It was not an experience he ever wanted to try again. He had actually had to physically rehabilitate himself for a couple of long weeks, readjusting to being physical again, his balance being the worst of it, and his physical to electrical change kept throwing him off.

The worst part was he didn't seem to be able to hold a charge as long as he used to. He'd actually had a talk with Samurai about the possibility of no longer being fit enough to be a superhero. Fortunately, Samurai had taken charge of his rehabilitation, pushing him past his mostly groundless fears, much to his relief. He did seem to run out of power sooner, but there had been at least one benefit; since the Borg incident, the electrical hero had been able to adjust his electrical form to various wavelengths to become almost light, though doing so weakened him considerably as he would lose a bit of himself each time he did it.

As he flew low along the outer wall, he noted fewer drones as they all seemed to be heading to where the heroes had arrived in the TARDIS. At one point while looking back to where the TARDIS was, he had even caught sight of Apache Chief wrestling with a giant robot. While he wanted to fly back to lend a hand, his mission was by no means complete. The only answer seemed to be finding the Borg Queen to put an end to all this.

As Black Vulcan scooped the area, he spotted two drones guarding the entrance to side tunnel or chamber. The African-American electrical hero swooped down like a streak of lightning, too fast for the two drones to aim and shoot at him. He stood over the two smoldering, unconscious drones to look inside to yet another chamber, albeit smaller, but still almost as large as a football field.

Entering warily, he paused at the sight of the Flash caught in some type of twenty foot by twenty foot containment field, racing around in a blur on the inside to avoid the stun beams of the Borg drones trying to hit him from the outside.

Knowing he probably didn't have much time, the hero attacked the drones that were trying to shoot the Flash, and it wasn't until he flew inside that he realized just how outnumbered he was. And being this close, he could feel the mental list that some telepath named Professor X had downloaded into his head without as so much as a '_May I?_', revealing the names and abilities of several of the individuals who had been assimilated into drones, distracting him.

Black Vulcan raised an electrical shield around himself so that he could have a chance to make sense of everything in his head. Fortunately, a little known fact of his electrical powers, they let his brain process things faster when he amped up the neurons in his head.

Four of the drones he had faced before from his encounters with the Legion Of Doom – Brainiac, Lex Luthor, Captain Cold and the Toyman. Many of the others he had studied from reports in preparation for chance encounters as a member of the Super Friends, now known as the Justice League; from those reports he recognized the Brain and his simian servant Monsieur Mallah, the Queen of Clubs, Cavalier, Golden Glider, Clock King and Catman all being from his Earth which was mostly called Earth-1. Hunter was, too, but from the 30th century. There was also Superwoman from Earth-3, and then Fiddler, Minister Blizzard, the Joker, Alexei Luthor and Deathbolt all from Earth-2. From the data that Professor X had put in his head were even more names, some good, some bad.

A.J. Simon, Ethan Hunt, John Steed, Fox Mulder, Roger Murtaugh, Spenser, Hawk, James Ellison, Doug Penhall and Joey Penhall, all from the same universe, most having been at a convention where the Borg invasion to their reality began, after which joined a new group that focused on extra-terrestrial, extra-dimensional encounters as well as being a world peace-keeping force; Edison Carter, a action news reporter who had joined a team that had gone to fight the Borg in Australia on a world taken over by Apes; _'Mad'_ Max Rockatansky lived in that desolate environment, and had joined the fight against the Borg, and in the process found himself a wife in Leela, one of the Doctor's companions, both now drones; Brisco County, Jr. had come across the Borg as they began taking over a small town in southern California during the late 1800's; Rock-1 had come to the Land of the Lost with her family, the Bionic Six, and the Power Rangers when the seventh Doctor arrived here before the others, only to be quickly outmatched and assimilated; Zanya had been part of the Dreadnoks, who often worked for Cobra, and joined with them to work for the Master; Riley Finn and a few on his teammates in the Initiative had followed his girlfriend, Buffy, to come help end the Borg threat over the multiverse; the pirate Jack Sparrow and Space Ranger Buzz Lightyear had both stumbled into the Land of the Lost and formed a group with a few others to rescue some people from the clutches of Dr. Emilio Lizardo, the end result being all three of them were now drones; Brennan Mulwray had been talked into coming by one of the Doctors, and now served the Borg. The mutated Leatherhead, Slash and Baxter Stockman, all foes of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, had all followed Shredder on this venture for power, only to have become a part of a power they had not expected or desired. Also in the room were several Sleestak drones as well as drones made from Horde Troopers, the Foot ninjas, several of Cobra's troops, some Gorillas, Chimpanzees, and an Orangutan, three Minbari rangers, an Oompa Loompa, a few Amazons, and several Visitors.

But off to the side, Black Vulcan could see the Borg Queen working at a table upon which the android Doyle was in the process of being taken apart. Next to Doyle was an alien female of a humanoid form with signs of nano-probes throughout her body, but was chitinous and reptilian, and had a mass of prehensile tentacles for hair. The Borg Queen stood nearby and was coordinating the work of a Sleestak drone and Alexei Luthor as they attached Doyle's arm to the alien female. Just off from that workstation, the Lex Luthor drone was doing a diagnostic study on the recently assimilated superhero Cyborg.

"That's so wrong!" Black Vulcan had to look away as his stomach twisted, threatening to regurgitate everything within it.

The Borg Queen looked up at him with a smile. "And I find it to be a work of beauty. Part of a process that brings us all together." She held up her arms as she traced her hands down the opposite one. "Biological and cybernetic, joined together to make us all completely one, sharing everything."

"Everything but the freedom of choice, you mean." His eyes kept glancing around the room as he tried to put together a plan. "The only one with that ability appears to be you. And you don't allow any freedoms!"

Her grin widened. "As it should be. The order I provide is so much better than the chaos of everyone running around unplanned, unregulated."

"Vulcan!" the Flash cried out. "Leave before-"

"Too late, Super-fools," shouted out a voice both heroes recognized.

Black Vulcan noticed the force field too late. And was now stuck just like the Flash within a transparent cage.

The green-skinned android, Brainiac, walked around the console he had been working at, grinning like he had won the lottery. "My lovely, new mate isn't the only one with free will around here."

The electric powered hero snorted in disdain. "Not for long if I have my guess. Sounds like your bride has a different understanding of how things are going to be. I think you are going to go the way of the male praying mantis after the she-mantis is done with him."

"That's where I'd place my bet," added a golden-yellow skinned android standing still along the wall. Black Vulcan's mental list quickly labeled the speaker as Lore, an extremely dangerous android, and a member of Q2's team sent to destroy the Borg.

"Silence, you!" Brainiac snarled at the other android. And the Borg Queen seemed to find his antics amusing.

"Don't tell me you are jealous of another android's intentions toward your lady?" Black Vulcan taunted, a tactic Batman had taught him to do, in order to make the bad guys slip up, and give the heroes the upper hand.

"Trust me, she is no lady," quipped Lore, with a grin of his own at Brainiac's obvious anger.

"I'll say," piped up the Flash once he realized what they were doing. "She hasn't been able to take her eyes off me since I stepped in here."

The Borg Queen walked over, placing a hand on the fuming Brainiac's shoulders. "They are getting to you." She turned his head toward hers, with just the touch of her hand. "You can't let them win like that."

She brought him in for a kiss, a long and sensual kiss. Brainiac, his new emotion-chip, courtesy of the Borg Queen, working at full speed, quickly changed gears, and returned the kiss.

"Now this has definitely got to be against the Geneva Convention's statutes for the humanitarian treatment of prisoners." Black Vulcan took the moment to check out the walls of his prison, sending short burst of electricity of the barrier, looking for weak spots. He had a couple of ideas of how to get out but didn't want to try them just yet until he had a better idea of how both he and the Flash could get out on their own in one piece.

"I know right," added the Flash, who was still turning around, keeping an eye out for the next drone to shoot at him. "Okay, now that I've had a minute to think, I think I've got an out. How about you?"

Black Vulcan was spraying the floor with electricity when he came upon a small vein of iron ore that he could feel running through the room. "Yep, just waiting on you, slowpoke." He instantly converted his body to electrical energy and jumped into the thin iron vein that had several places where it connected to the chamber wall. The electrified hero chose the farthest away, and emerged behind the Fiddler, and sent out a burst of lightning to short circuit the villainous violinist.

The Flash had made his escape by vibrating through the cavern floor, and coming up elsewhere, near the gorilla known as Monsieur Mallah. "Geez! And I thought Grodd smelled bad!" He tried to physically disconnect as many things as he could by hand, like he had done with a few previous opponents, only to be repelled back. Flash determined that it felt like when two magnets would push away from each other. Seeing if it would happen again, he tried to the same thing to Golden Glider and Detective Roger Murtaugh, and was similarly pushed away each time. He quickly rationalized that the Borg had created a field around each drone that repelled the frictionless aura around his body that was generated by his super-speed powers. "If I can't touch them, then I'll just have to be more created." Racing at super-speed, the Flash used his momentum to run up the cave wall, and was soon climbing among the stalactites, knocking several down, more to destroy equipment and create chaos than to actually hurt anyone. He had knocked down most of the larger and smaller hanging rocks, before a barge of stunners proved to be too much to dodge. His body bounced off the walls, managing to stay awake just long enough to keep from falling to his death.

Black Vulcan was a bit out of breath, but he still reacted when he had sensed the electrical buildup behind him, ducking out of the path of electricity that might have been powerful enough to kill him. Stepping out of an alcove was half of the robot mascot of Bionic Six, F.L.U.F.F.I., and an electrical being he didn't recognize. Nor would he be expected to since the Borg had Taelon alien Zo'or had been mutated into a more electrified form and had parts from the two Taelons he had arrived with, added to his mass. The result was a Borg drone that on one side was a large ape-shaped robot while on the other half was a large humanoid seething in bright blue electricity.

Black Vulcan fired off his own bout of electricity, but the composite creature of metal and electricity seemed to just absorb it.

"Oh no you didn't!" He sent off a much brighter blast, and the drone just absorbed it again. "Oh, I guess you did," he said, with a great deal of surprise in his voice.

He leapt out of the way of a volt of electricity from the drone, but knew he had to get out of here soon since it was only a matter of time until he was hit. As it was he had almost been stabbed with the extended tubules of the half-fly man turned drone, Baxter Stockman, and had struck the drone rather hard with a bolt of lightning, causing it to burn up like a fly in a bug zapper.

A look of horror past over Black Vulcan as he stared at the blacked mess that was the first person he had ever killed. Being in shock, the drone of Ethan Hunt had been about to stun him from behind but was suddenly tackled by a man that had jumped from a small, nearly unnoticeable tunnel.

The electrical hero, still in shock, could only stare as several people he didn't know began running around him and engaging the drones. A short haired, blond woman with an English accent tried saying something to him, but to no avail.

That was when Professor X made his presence known again. _Black Vulvan!_

"Yeeaaaah!" His hands held the sides of his head even as he bent over. "Don't do that!"

"What do you mean?" asked the woman, perplexed at his actions, and had taken a step back.

"Not you. The telepath talking in my head."

"Oh, you mean John."

It was the hero's turn to look confused. "Who's John?" He knew that Professor X's real name was Charles Xavier, so who was John?

_John is the telepath I've been communicating with for the last few minutes_, explained Professor X. _It turns out he also put together a group of formidable allies when stumbling into this strange land._

"So they are on our side?" asked Black Vulcan while he stepped behind a large boulder, as found the distraction of someone talking in his head to be too distracting while in the heat of battle.

_Yes, while they may not wear costumes, we are on the same side, as they are trying to rescue some of their friends that have been taken by the Borg._

Black Vulcan glanced back at the smoldering corpse of Baxter Stockman, guilt weighting into him.

_No, that wasn't one of their friends_, the telepath informed him. _In fact, he was one of the Master's recruits, if that makes you feel any better. Now I'm just going to update your memory list, then I have to inform others of events happening here._

"Wait!" But the influx of information stormed through his neural pathways, and he suddenly knew the names of his new allies. The man that had tackled the drone that had almost got him was Danny Quinn, who had a job dealing with time anomalies and prehistoric creatures that had come through them. The young woman who had been trying to talk to him was Abby Maitland, who had been working with Danny for only a little while. Three men in robes of different variety, all with just a bit of grey in their beards, were casting some type of spells. The oldest and who seemed to hold himself as the most regal was Saruman the White, who was forcing back the robot drone that Black Vulcan had been fighting earlier. Beside him, blocking a number of stun beams, was Gandalf the Grey. The shortest of the trio, was Radagast the Brown, gleefully batting the stun beams away with his staff.

Just beyond them were two shorter people casting magic. At first he thought they were children, but when they turned he saw they were probably older than he was. He intuitively knew that they were of a race he had never heard of before called the Nelwyns. Both men were wizards; the young Willow Ufgood, the apprentice, and the High Aldwin, the master. In a flash of magic, the High Aldwin turned the Fox Mulder drone into a cyber-pig. Willow used his wand to send several small round stones under the feet of a Sleestak drone causing it to fall onto it's back.

The Sleestak drone, even on it's back, was still a danger. It aimed with it's Borg prosthetic limb to fire at the little wizard when one of the other new arrivals waved his hand that way and the arm and chest area of the drone just melted instantly.

He gapped as he looked up at the man named Sylar. The dark-haired man seemed to be eerily focused, and the look that he sent towards Black Vulcan gave him the creeps the likes of Desaad, Darkseid's sadistic henchman. It was a look of pure hunger.

Wanting to help his rescuers, Black Vulcan hurried over and put a hand on the shoulder of the Oompa Loompa drone that Connor Temple was struggling with, and sent a strong jolt of electricity into it.

"Thanks," Connor managed to say as he shoved the downed Oompa Loompa to the side.

"Not a problem, kid. Keep up the good work."

Connor mumbled something about wearing pants, but otherwise didn't respond, intent as he was on instead rushing over to help Abby with a Sleestak drone she was struggling with.

Black Vulcan stumbled and bent down on one knee.

"You…you've depleted yourself, haven't you?"

The hero looked up to see kindly looking dark-haired man who was digging through an old, black doctor's bag. Extracting a sphere-shaped object about the size of a coconut, which he promptly threw into the midst of a large number of drones where it emitted a large purple electric shock, sending them flying.

"What was that?" asked the superhero, having sensed the oddness in the electricity of the small explosive device.

"That was a Tesla Grenade," Artie Nielsen responded with a grin. "And here, I think I have something that might help you with your low voltage problem." He quickly extracted a metal rod from the bag and tossed it to Black Vulcan who instinctively caught it.

The black superhero felt the resulting boost in his power immediately. "What is this thing?"

"That," the man said with a smile. "is Ben Franklin's Lightning Rod. And it will boost the energy level of any electrical device it's attached to."

"Are you serious?"

"Look around you. Does it really matter right now as long as it works."

"Right." He grinned and sent out a bolt of lightning just before a Sleestak drone could inject Olivia Dunham with nano-probes. He looked down at the rod in his hand. He could still feel the amount of power lowering, but nowhere near what it had been. "Now this will put the quarterback back on the field!"

It was a good thing, too, as the next drone he had to face was that of the Earth-2 electrically powered super-villain known as Deathbolt.

()

Mr. Peabody, who appeared to be an ordinary white dog, bar the fact that he was wearing black-rimmed glasses, a bowtie, walking upright on it's back two legs and speaking perfect English. In fact, Mr. Peabody was not a dog at all, but in fact an alien, and a time-traveling one at that. And currently he was discussing the situation they were in with Captain Jack Harkness, who also happened to be a time traveler.

"Captain Harkness, we need to take down the Borg Queen with all due speed. If she falls, they all fall."

Captain Jack Harkness ducked down as the rock wall where his head had been was struck by a Borg beam. "And I'm telling you we can't get to her until we remove a good portion of these drones she has guarding her! Or did you forget about them?"

"Not at all, in fact that Flash fellow seems to have brought down a good part of the ceiling on them on the far end of the cavern. That should make it an easier job for us."

"Easy for you to say," Sam Axe grumbled as he and some others passed the two to join the fight alongside the barbarian warrior known as Kull.

Jack Harkness fired twice at two drones that seemed intent on capturing one of the ladies that had come along on the venture. The green scaled, amphibious, last survivor of the ancient civilization of Mu, Manta, had been the drone that Harkness had only partially injured. The other drone had been Moray, a woman raised by dolphins, and had later married Manta. Both drones opened fire at Harkness who had already ducked for cover.

That gave Lara Croft all the opening she needed as she tucked and rolled over to the drone couple. First she used one of her knives to slice through several of the more vital equipment to the Borg that Professor X had let them know about.

The Moray drone turned to attack Croft even as the Manta drone slumped to the ground. The tomb raider tried to use a sweep kick to knock the drone off her feet, but it had been like trying to do it to a metal post. Rolling onto her back, Croft kicked up with her other leg to kick away the Moray's prosthetic arm, then used her knife to bat away the assimilation tubules that came out to seek her.

Things looked to get even more difficult until someone struck the drone with something hard in the back of the head, dropping her.

Lara Croft looked up with a bit of relief at Fiona Glenanne. "Thanks."

The other woman smirked, as she ducked down next to her. "Looks like you had both of them until your sweep didn't work."

Croft was already checking her leg. "Doesn't appear broken; it'll leave a nasty bruise and I'll be limping for the next week, but otherwise I'm good to go."

"You can fight?" Fiona asked with a raised eyebrow.

It was Croft's turn to smirk. "Try and stop me."

()

Richard Castle hung behind Kate Beckett. Somehow following up on an art gallery robbery-turned homicide, both of them had somehow stumbled into a different world, possibly a parallel world or another dimension. He wasn't sure which term applied, or maybe they both did; he was a mystery novelist, not a science-fiction writer. And yet here he stood in a massive cave with cyborg slaves that worked to try and take over everyone. He even had some kind of ray gun in his hand that Beckett had found for him.

"Kate?"

She was checking her area, making sure there were no drones in her line of sight, or more accurately, that she wasn't in their line of sight. "They got Howard."

"The duck guy?" Meeting Howard, an actual humanoid duck, had been the biggest eye opener that they weren't exactly in their neck of the woods anymore. Well, Howard and they the dinosaur that gave chase to them five minutes later. Kind of hard to argue that dinosaurs couldn't possibly been alive anymore when one is trying to eat you.

"Yeah, Howard. We can't leave him here. The Borg will try make him one of them."

"Can they do that; I mean, he's not Human, so how will they know if he's even compatible?"

"That Professor X said that they have taken in thousands of alien races, so I don't think they would have a problem with Howard. Now pick him up and I'll cover you."

Edging forward, Castle could see where Howard laid sprawled out in front of a console of some sort. He jumped as someone further away shouted something followed by an explosion, but it wasn't too near them.

"Hurry!"

He scampered over, keeping as low as possible, until he was next to the duck-man called Howard. He looked down uneasily at the small body. "What if he has some kind of transmittable disease from his world that could wipe out the Human race?"

"Would you just pick-" She suddenly raised the alien rifle she had appropriated and began firing off to Castle's left. He didn't need to know any more that his time for lollygagging was up. He seized a hold of the stunned feathered being and raced back to the nearest cluster of boulders to seek shelter behind.

"I got him."

He peeked over at Kate. "Are you sure?"

"Unless he can get up without his head, I think he's down for good."

That unpleasant image simply reminded him that with all the shooting going on, he could be the next one to be missing his head. "Maybe I should stay here."

"I wouldn't; it looks like several drones are coming this way which will take them right by you."

Grumbling, Castle shouldered Howard, and ran as fast as he dared toward Kate. Somehow he managed to pick up speed when Kate started firing again.

()

Balthazar Blake pushed away the electrical attack of the creature that was half metal golem and half lightning demon. Fortunately, he had changed the energy of the attack enough so that it affected two drones, one a man named Spenser and the other one of the Foot Clan ninjas.

To his left, Conan was hacking at a turtle entity drone by the name of Slash. To his right, John Rambo had his hands full against the drone of Captain Jack Sparrow – one of the drones they were trying to not kill because they knew him.

"You need to ground him; you have to ground the electricity!" shouted the little man he had rescued when he first arrived in this amazing land from a tentacled plant that was about to devour him.

Forcing his sorcerous powers into the rock at the feet of the drone, the drone suddenly found itself falling through the rock like it wasn't there, sending off one lash of energy that he wasn't able to totally block.

As he started to come to, Wayne Szalinski was lightly slapping his cheeks. He managed to catch his hand before it could do so again.

"Are you all right?" asked the scientist.

"Am I alive and talking?"

"Um, yeah."

"Then I must be alright then."

That didn't amuse the smaller man though. "You know, when I said to ground that thing, I didn't mean for you to actually … What did you do to it anyway?"

The sorcerer looked around at the little shelter that Wayne had evidently drug him into as he reach down for a small flask from one of his pockets. "I made the ground take on the aspect of a phantom for but a moment. After that moment, it once again became rock."

Wayne's eyes widened in surprise. "You destabilized the molecular bonds of the rock floor, causing the drone to fall through it, then let the molecular bonds re-stabilize, letting it solidify around, and more likely, in that thing?"

Balthazar frowned at that. "I think it was more like I said, but you may be right, too."

"So it's dead then?"

"It would be most unfortunate in that situation were to be otherwise. Especially for it." He sat up and noticed the drone laid out on the floor a few feet away. "What about him?"

"Oh." The scientist looked a bit sheepish. "I used some of those glowing crystals in the rock walls. If you touch them together in the right combination, you can get a small explosion. That's how I got him." He scratched the back of his neck, feeling a bit embarrassed. "Do you think you can help him?"

The list of names that the mind wizard called Professor X had put in his head identified the drone to be usurping the body of a heralder by the name of Edison Carter. "I do not know enough about the drone creation process to try my hand on rectifying it. And you know we will not be able to save all of them."

Wayne Szalinski squirmed at that, not wanting to believe that. "Rationally, I know that. But, I still want to try. And…I know it's weird but he reminds me of my old neighbor, Russell Thompson."

"Is that a bad or a good thing?"

"Hmm? Oh, neither really. I just don't like seeing someone I know, or even looks like someone I know, having been all chopped up and turned into a mindless, slave-like cyborg."

Balthazar turned his head as the shooting came closer on his left. "I think we may have to postpone this conversation until another time, as it may cost us our lives if we remain focused on it."

"Right," Wayne agreed, and he carefully picked up a few of the glowing crystals he had already scavenged, careful not to let them touch.

()

Kull took a running jump and swung his large axe at the alligator-demon called Leatherhead. The demon-drone was not facing him, but was about to shoot mystic light from it's replaced limb at one of Kull's comrades, and orange-haired woman who was carrying someone in a red garb.

His axe hit the metal limb sending sparks into the air while also in affect knocking the drone sideways.

Kull tried for a more lethal blow, but this time the drone blocked it intentionally with it's metal arm. "You will fall, demon!"

The Leatherhead drone remained silent as it extended it's tubules. Kull's new companions had been warned of that threat, and tried to cut them off with a swing of his axe. They were deflected, but immediately went for him again. Kull used his shield to bat them away while bringing his axe straight down on the beast's head. Or at least that is what he tried to do before some force created a barrier around the thing's head, stopping the lethal blow.

"Magic!" He scowled and kicked the alligator man-drone in the chest with the expectation of knocking it off his feet.

He might as well have tried to kick over a stone wall. Kull stumbled back and the drone used that moment to try fire at Kull. The weapon sparked but did not spew any arcane light at the barbarian king. "Ha! My axe has made your weapon useless, demon, as it shall do to the rest of you as well.

Before they could engage in fighting again, Kull's companion had attacked the drone from the rear, having deposited the unconscious man she had been carrying somewhere.

Leeloo struck hard in multiple places, disconnecting tubes as she came by them. The Leatherhead drone moved to attach her with the tubules while trying to grab her, but Kull was faster and severed the hand with his mighty axe.

Kull tossed a dagger up to Leeloo who deftly caught it, then slammed it into Leatherhead's neck and into his spine. Using all her strength, she pushed the blade sideways to inflict as much damage as she could before the nanites in the drone could repair it.

The Leatherhead drone finally dropped, his head only halfway attached.

"You fight well," Kull admitted, knowing few women, let alone men that could meet the skill she had shown.

She was cleaning the blade before looking up at him. Her eyes widened. "Your shield!"

Kull looked down at it and was surprised to see that some of the grayish ooze from the black lines he had batted away had been splattered on it, and seemed to be trying to eat away at it in order to get to him. He carefully removed it and let it fall with a thunk onto the cave floor.

"That would have been unfortunate." He looked for his next foe never seeing the stun beam that struck him from the side.

Leeloo dodged the next round of shots at her with a series of flips and rolls that would have put an Olympic athlete to shame. Two drones, the Cavalier and Clock King, worked together to pin her down, herding her to the cave wall where there was nowhere to hide.

Callen had never been so out of his element, and was sorely missing even the worst streets in Los Angeles. He still wasn't sure how he had arrived in this place while chasing a meth producer named Walter White. But he had to questioned his own sanity when he ran across several dinosaurs. It hadn't helped after he ran across a canine appearing alien named Mr. Peabody. He was sure that the perp White must have exposed him to something, except for the fact of how clear-headed he felt. Having a mission did help get himself centered. Even if that mission was to take on alien cybernetic zombies. At least they gave him a ray gun of some kind to use. That had to count for something.

He had tried to follow after the team of mercenaries that Captain Harkness had hired, but they had pressed forward too quickly and he had been cut off. He had taken down a drone that had been a 30th century bad guy called the Hunter, and killed another that went by the name of Joker, who had eerily stayed grinning up at him even after he died. Now he needed to shoot two drones aiming at an acrobatic orange haired woman he really wanted to be introduced to formally.

"You take the Cavalier; I'll take down Clock King."

Callen barely had time to recognize the voice as that of Special Agent Booth before they were both firing at their targets.

At their targets dropped, both men quickly scanned the area for more drones. Callen let out the breath he'd been holding. "What is it with the names these guys have? Clock King? Cavalier? Joker?"

Booth didn't bother to shrug. "Some military personnel do it; street gangs, too. It's probably mandatory for the ones who dress up in costumes."

Callen edged forward, eyes darting back and forth. "I'm going to check on Leeloo. Want to help haul the big guy?" he asked, nodding to Kull.

"Sorry, I've already got someone to haul." He nodded back by a counter that had been crushed by a large rock from the ceiling, next to which lay the unconscious form of Dr. Temperance Brennan, or _'Bones'_ to her friends.

Callen frowned, realizing that left him and Leeloo to get Kull to safety. Turning around he was more than a bit surprised to see that Leeloo had Kull on her shoulder and was dragging the red-garbed Flash with an arm around the waist while doing an easy jog in order to get them to safer ground. She was definitely stronger than she looked.

He didn't have long to just stare like that as he had to lay down a cover fire for them – not that the drones ever tried to duck for cover. They were annoying like that.

Sam, Kensi and Marty. He really wished they were here to watch his back. Though they would probably be freaked out by all this, too. Hetty probably wouldn't be. In fact he wouldn't be surprised if she had already had a similar experience.

A movement off to his left caught his eye. He was barely able to call out to the others before he had been stunned.

()

Once firing her laser rifle had no more effect on the Borg, Alice rushed in close ducking under the seeking extended nano-probe delivering tubules, then put the rifle between it's legs and twisted, knocking Puddleglum onto his back. The Marsh-wiggle drone didn't have a chance to mount another attack before the butt of the rifle smashed into the red eye optic.

She took a second to take a deep breath and took stock of herself. But she didn't have any more time than that as just then another drone came around the corner and turned to her. She ran to meet it before it could aim at her. She used the dead body of a previous drone she had killed, that was the body of James Ellison, as a stepping stone to leap up at the drone of the ape Monsieur Mallah, twisting her body in the air to avoid the shot from the weaponed arm. She managed to land a glancing blow to the gorilla's skull with the butt end of her laser rifle, but this drone was much sturdier than the one made from Puddleglum. With a speed none of the other drone's seemed to possess, a large paw grabbed her and pulled her in front of him.

She reacted to the danger posed by being by the tubules, grabbing them with her free hand, pulling until they broke off and she tossed them away. With her feet, she kicked at the Mallah drone's head and gut, anywhere she thought he might be vulnerable.

"Get your stinking paws off me, you dirty ape!" she yelled, kicking his other arm away before the drone could use it to stun her. Behind the drone, she was the approaching figure of Peter Bishop, one of the group gathered by Captain Harkness. She just needed to distract the ape-drone that was holding her in his iron grip until Bishop could shoot him from behind. She redoubled her efforts, but to no avail; the drone wasn't letting go. And Bishop was more than close enough to shoot him.

That's when she noticed the grayish color of his skin and the stillness in his eyes. He'd already been taken over. She was so surprised at seeing the condition Peter Bishop was in, that she was completely taken off guard when she felt a stabbing sensation in one of her buttocks. Glancing back, she managed to twist enough so that her legs wrapped around the Toyman drone's head, and then jerked it so that his neck snapped and he fell lifeless to the ground.

But it was too late. She could feel the nano-probes forcing their way through her body, which would soon belong to the Borg. She could only watch as James Ellison continued walking past her, and knew that soon she would be just like him. And then Mallah would set her down and she would follow the choruses of voices she now heard just like Bishop was doing.

()

Brainiac didn't like the way their ranks were being depleted so quickly; he was already calling up more of their reserve forces, many of which, had not finished their regeneration cycle. True, in the main cavern the drones were beginning to gain the upper hand again, but they should have never lost it in the first place. Where were all these unexpected reinforcements coming from? It was costing them valuable resources, wasting them as they dies fighting.

His queen, his new mate, was focused on the new assimilation she was overseeing, trusting him to direct the defenses, and the assimilation of their attackers. But there was more than that. There was something wrong with the Collective Mind they all shared. He wasn't sure if it was just that he was new to the Collective, or that he had a different role than the other drones in the Collective, or, and this one really disturbed him, could the Borg Collective be rejecting him, seeing his as being unfit for their queen? He didn't even dare mention it to her since it could just be a reaction to the emotion chip she provided him with. It he was unable to master the use of the emotion chip, would she find him to be too weak to be her mate? He only allowed himself a few milliseconds to dwell on this before pushing the thought to the side in order to focus on the threat to his mate.

He had an invisible force field shaped into a dome over their personal work area so those within the field were safe from any abrupt attacks. It had been fortunate that he had done so because otherwise, when the Flash had started dropping rock boulders and stalactites from the ceiling of the cave, they might have been injured or possibly killed. Strangely, the experience had made him feel more protective of his new mate, as well as to decimate and assimilate their opposition.

Within the confines of the invisible bubble, were ten occupants. Brainiac and the Borg Queen; the devious Lore, who had come under the control of Jake Foley; Jake Foley, whose only reason to be there was that he had sole control over Lore; then there were the two Luthors that the Master had recruited from Earth-1 and Earth-2; there was one of the local sentient life forms, a Sleestak; an odd man that the Borg Queen had met and personally inducted into a drone, Forrest Gump; the cybernetic superhero Cyborg; and lastly the new drone just being processed that seemed to have a combination of alien and Human DNA in her.

When the two heroes had escaped their cages, he had immediately had the Jake Foley drone bring Lore to the safety of the work station, not wanting to risk damaging him in the melee going on. No, he had plans for him. At the suggestion of his intellectual companion, Brainiac would take parts from Lore and graft them onto Jake Foley, and the parts he took from Jake Foley he would graft onto Lore. They would be two drones, but the same; mirror images of each other. This would be his challenge to himself and looked forward to starting it. But first he had to deal with the attacks.

He did have hopes of retaining some of his former friends from the Legion of Doom as personal guards for the two of them, perhaps even keeping Sinestro's ring for his own use. So many worlds in his own universe that he looked forward to absorbing into the Collective, which was much better than collecting miniaturized cities and keeping them in bottles. Colu, where he was created, would be the first to be assimilated. From there he's take over both Rann and Thanagar. Daxam would be useful to have since each Daxamite would be as strong as Superman when under a yellow sun, and their weakness to the exposure of lead would be negated by the nano-probes in their systems. From there they would take over the Vegan system, which boasted having over twenty inhabited planets, all different, but ruled by the Citadelians. Durla, a world of shapeshifters, would be next, and hopefully help improve the connection between organic and machine. The Dominators would also help in that category with their unorthodox organic technology. The Khund Empire would provide fighting drones.

Only then would they assimilate the Earth. That primitive planet that somehow vexed all who would try to conquer her would belong to the Borg. That small insignificant world held a treasure trove of technological wonders as well as a myriad of fresh, strong bodies. He planned to take Gorilla City, Grodd's old stomping ground, hidden deep in the African jungles. Paradise Island, home to Wonder Woman, was filled with strong, warrior women that would make perfect drones. Plus, he had heard of their amazing purple ray device that they had developed that intrigued him. Atlantis, a city lost in myth to most of the world, was the seat of power for Aquaman, it's king. For many millennia, the underwater denizens of Atlantis had been creating technological marvels that were way different from that of the rest of the planet. Then there were the myriad of superheroes and super-villains that graced that planet, many with powers of some kind or were using some form of interesting technology that they had managed to cobble together or come into possession of. The greatest reason to return to Earth there was the shrunken Kryptonian city of Kandor, which Superman had stolen from him. For that alone would he storm the door of Superman's Fortress of Solitude, and with it a collection of lost Kryptonian technological achievements, as well as items collected from other worlds, usually those that Superman had had to come up against.

The next major challenge would be back out on Space. Mogo, the living planet that was also a Green Lantern. Once Mogo was a drone of the Borg, the Borg would turn their collective attention onto Oa, the planet at the center of the universe, and the home base for the Guardians and the Green Lantern Corps. Only after that was all done would they go after Apokolips and New Genesis. Once they had taken over the universe, they would go on to the universe of Earth-2, and so on and so on. Until everything was Borg. Until everything was theirs!

Brainiac's purview of the future was interrupted by a sudden assault of bullets bouncing off the force field dome he had placed over their work area. While the bullets themselves made no progress towards them, the noise of the assault was very abrasive. So much so that he could sense the growing exasperation from his bride as she tried to continue overseeing the assimilation to the female alien.

After a moment, the Coluan android augmenting his force field to block sound, and chose to listen to what was happening through the ears of the drones outside his force field. For this action, the Borg Queen turned her head and rewarded him with a smile. "That you for the consideration, my love."

"But of course; now I really must deal with these new brutes. I will try and save you a few though."

"That would be appreciated." Her eyes scanned him for just a moment more. "Perhaps you will find one that you might like to take some of the components from to add to your person."

This startled him, making him forget the battle outside his dome. "You want me to…take on flesh? To become…a cyborg?" His emotion chip was getting a workout as all sorts of feelings at that suggestion warred within him. "Is this body not enough for you? You have my…I believe it is often referred to as '_heart_'. Why taint my being with messy organics?"

"Is that how you see me? As having '_messy organics'_?"

"No. That is not what I meant. Or you it is good. I just don't know for myself."

She graced him with a smile, a smile that let him hope he hadn't completely and irrevocably messed up his new relationship that he had forsaken everything he knew for.

She slowly walked over to him and gently traced her fingers over his lips. "There are some positive to being organic that you haven't realized, that possibly never considered."

He found himself wanting to learn what it was she was referring to, to be willing to add flesh to his body in order to learn this new knowledge she was speaking about. He was a gatherer of data first and foremost; this would be new knowledge for him to partake of. "I'll take specs of potential captures to harvest from. Perhaps you could help me make a selection?"

She rewarded with a kiss, making him wonder what it would feel like to kiss with lips made of flesh instead of the inorganic compound he currently had. There were other things to consider, too.

"Assimilate our assailants, guide our spearhead into Gallifrey, and we can focus more on the pros and cons of the flesh." She graced the android with a smile before walking back over to the operating station.

"She's playing you!" Lore spoke out in a sing-song manner.

Brainiac gritted his teeth at having this moment tarnished by the inferior android. "I look forward to dismantling you and piecing you together with your master Foley. I'll make sure to have you awake and aware for the whole process, with your sensors turned up to the maximum so you can enjoy the entire step-by-step event as you two are joined together."

Lore scowled, but said nothing. At this point, he was actually rooting for the heroes. And it galled him.

()

Outside the force field, events were much louder, but stalled from going forward. Barney Ross tapped Hale Caesar twice on the shoulder to have him hold up on the firing of his AA-12 Shotgun that fired two hundred and fifty rounds a minute.

"Hold up. This isn't getting us anywhere."

"How the hell is my baby not shooting through this thing?" Caesar demanded, more out of frustration than anything else.

"How the hell should I know?" Barney retorted back. "The thing is invisible. Can't even tell if you're makin' a dent, but I doubt it."

"Church put us on a real hum-dinger of a job this time." Lee Christmas slapped a quick bandage on his leg that had been grazed by a ricochet. "I bet Trench was smart enough to pass it up."

"You were there with me. All we were told we had to do was to help that pompous Captain Jack Harkness, and I quote, '_against intruders trying to take over an indigenous population_'." He swung his fist out and struck the invisible barrier. "No one said anything about this science-fiction crap." He spat, and glared at those inside the invisible dome continuing on with what they were doing as if he wasn't even there.

Toll Road ducked down for cover, and pulled Barney down with him as beams of light flashed over their heads leaving the smell of burnt ozone.

"Hey, Barney." Toll Road put a fresh clip in his weapon. His gun didn't seem to have much effect on them due to their personal body force fields popping up to block the bullets, but he still felt a little safer having it fully loaded. Plus, they had discovered that the drones couldn't predict the ricochet shots all the time, so there was still that. "If you prove an aspect of science-fiction is real and factual, then it can no longer be considered science-fiction."

Barney growled. "Does this look like it's time for a school lesson? How about you teach us how to get through this invisible thing."

"Damn, look at Gunner."

They looked where Christmas pointed. And were a bit shocked. Gunner Jensen was a seasoned hulk of a mercenary. A very lethal man, as were all those that signed on to work with Barney. But that didn't stop Gunner from being tossed around like a ragdoll by a black-haired woman who was only in the first stage of Borg assimilation.

"How the hell…? Who the hell is that?"

Lee Christmas and Toll Road had been the first to accept the mental lists that Professor X had downloaded into each of their brains. Barney, however, was of the opinion that if he hadn't put it in his head, then he didn't want any part of it and tried not to think about it, hoping that by not using it, then it would just go away.

"Her name is, get this, Superwoman." Christmas couldn't bring himself to smile at the name, things were just too weird for him to relax enough to do that. "And she's considered a super-villain. Like in the comic books."

"Forget the name, can you get a bead on her? Gunner won't last long at this rate."

Christmas tried to work on doing just that.

Meanwhile, Barney took a quick shot at another drone that walked into view. He used a boulder near the drone, who he knew was A.J. Simon, but refused to admit that was who it was, and fired a couple of rounds, letting them bounce off the rock, tearing holes into the drone's legs, crippling him for the time being.

"Damn it!" bemoaned Christmas. "She's holding on to him and moving too fast. Think she might have broken his collar bone."

"Hold up." Toll Road pointed off to the left. "Yin Yang coming in for the save."

They watched the quick, nimble Chinese mercenary hurry over from his death match with the assimilated cyborg Kano. He held one arm close to his chest, holding his broken ribs together. Yang had lost his firearms, but held a knife in the other. Superwoman was quicker, and turned and thrust Gunner into Yang where the two men collapsed together, neither moving very fast now.

Hale Caesar took aim. "Do I take her out?"

None of them liked the thought of killing a woman, even an evil one. But neither did they want to see their comrades killed, which was obviously what she was about to do as he lifted a large boulder over her head.

"Shred the bitch."

Hale Caesar began to pour out the last of his ammo, which at two hundred and fifty rounds a minute went very fast. And while Superwoman was remarkably durable, even she had limits. Her body was quickly torn up under the hail fire directed at her, almost cutting her in half.

"I guess the ones that haven't been half way turned into a robot don't have the force fields," Barney remarked. "Good to know."

"Their called cyborgs," Toll Road pointed out. "Organic beings that have been enhanced by-"

"Just shoot them. I don't need to know how they were manufactured. If I wanted to know that, I would be watching Lady Frankenstein on the other side of that invisible wall working on her latest model."

"Barney! Unfriendlies moving in on Yang and Gunner!"

Two drones, Riley Finn and the Queen of Clubs, had come around the rubble of some of the stalactites near to where their two fallen teammates were crumpled on the floor. Yang handed Gunner a hand grenade that he managed to throw half-hazardly, but the male drone managed to shoot it in the air, vaporizing the explosive before it could detonate.

"Damn, and they're the kind that have the body force fields." Barney ran his hand over his mouth as he ran ideas through his head.

"All right, Lee and I will go in fast. You two cover us."

Lee pointed in the drones' general direction again. "There's someone else there."

The mercenaries all spotted a man stepping out from around some rubble. Michael Westen took a running leap in which he used his damaged gun to smash the Finn drone in the back of the head, while simultaneously kicking the Queen of Clubs drone so that she fell over. The male drone did not fall as easily as the Westen had hoped, but he had been prepared anyway and took a second swing. A swing that never landed, as the Queen of Clubs drone had fired a stunning beam at him from where she lay on the cavern floor.

The Finn drone knelt down as he sent out the tubules from inside his wrist to inject nano-probes into the fallen man. The female drone was just standing up to meet the oncoming attack from Barney and his team when a portion of the cavern wall near the main entrance was smashed in.

As the rock dust started to settle, two figures could be made out. That of a trenchcoated figure standing on top of a large robot.

Hellboy, not trusting the Decepticon-turned-drone to stay down, raised his gauntleted hand in a fist and smashed it down into the Ramjet drone's head, leaving a huge hole in the wake of his fist, which erupted with several flashes of sparks.

Standing up on fallen Decepticon, Hellboy shook the dust off his jacket. The red laser beams from the drones optic sensor let him know immediately that he wasn't alone. In fact he could see a few fights still ongoing from his vantage point. But what really caught his eye was when he spotted the Borg Queen herself, looking out at him from her dust covered dome.

Turning his head, Hellboy shouted out to others behind him. "Hey gang, the party hostess is in here!" He then used his gauntlet to block several beams of energy sent at him before leaping down onto the Monsieur Mallah drone, grappling with the simian Borg unit.

The Alpha Hirogen was the first to follow, almost instantly exchanging fire with the Buzz Lightyear drone. The long, scarf-wearing Doctor slunk in carefully along with the Cardassian Gul Dukat. Captain Oliver Hudson provided cover fire so that Captain Benjamin Sisko and Elisa Maza could hurry into the new chamber, Maza using her Alchemy Gun to create barricades as necessary. The young witch Ginny Weasley and the interdimensional operative known as Sapphire likewise entered, scurrying for cover.

Last to come in was another Lex Luthor. This Luthor had joined in the Doctor's quest against the Borg when he and Clark Kent had been picked up outside of Smallville. In that venture he had been turned into a drone, survived a fracturing of the Borg Collective, and created his own small Collective in which he only kept the drones that were too mentally damaged to survive being converted back to their former forms. Ironically, he had taken on the new name of Brainiac when he refused to be restored to normal. With Lex came three of his drones: Colt Seavers and Francis _'Ponch'_ Poncherello (whose brains had been among those too damaged to function on their own), and the super-villianess Queen Bee. While fighting Brainiac earlier, the other Brainiac had shrunk Lex down to two inches before having to flee from the attack of Lex's other drones. Lex had since been carried in a hastily made front pocket on Queen Bee, one of Borg drones that Lex had managed to usurp from the Borg Queen.

Barney and his men had not been idle, and had managed to knock the Queen of Clubs drone unconscious and had the Riley Finn drone pinned down under three of them. Lee Christmas kept his weapon aimed at the Queen Bee drone as she made her way over to them.

Lex knew that his first priority should be trying to get to the Borg Queen, but also felt that he couldn't just leave these people. He knew that this new _'boy scout'_ mentality was something that he had picked up from his friend, Clark Kent. Clark had literally given him a new lease on life after Lex had hit him with his car. The accident had knocked Lex out, and the car had fallen off the bridge and into the lake. It had been Clark who had tore off the roof off the car like it was tinfoil, brought him up out of the water, and performed CPR on him. Lex took a vested interest in Clark after that, trying in many subtle, and some not so subtle, ways to pay him back. Not that Clark was interested in payback, but was more than happy to have another friend. Clark's good guy personality had definitely had an effect on Lex.

Then the Doctor had come in his time traveling phone box. After ousting Clark as a super-powered alien, the Doctor had recruited Clark, Lex, Lana Lang and Chloe Sullivan to a parallel Earth that had just been introduced to a small group of Borg drones, whose mission was to assimilate and take over everything in that universe. Somehow they arrived in a café, and were confronted by several angels, an immortal boy, a dead man that had been released temporarily from hell, and a being that claimed to be the devil himself. Even more surreal was the fact that the devil looked exactly like Lionel Luthor, Lex's father.

Mark Gordon, a gruff, former police officer, and a companion to one of the angels named Jonathan, had been given the mission to help Lex in his decisions and to make him realize that God loves him and wants what is best for him. Lex, not a religious man by any means, wasn't sure what to think of that, but accepted Mark's company.

Not long after, Lex had been assimilated into the Borg Collective. Later when the Collective mind was shattered, Lex had been able to take over the fragment of the Collective mind that he was still connected to, and thus use those drones that had survived in that fragment to help take down the rest of the Borg still around. Lex had stayed in that universe for awhile as he helped return drones back to their original states, as well as tame down the sudden volcano that had appeared in the middle of Seattle.

He had only recently returned to his world, and was making use of a hologram projection to hide his Borg-like features. He'd quickly taken over his father's company, and was personally seeing to those affected by the kryptonite meteor rocks that were scattered all over the Smallville area. He was also seeing to the removal of the glowing green meteors, only saving a few for experimental purposes with Clark's permission.

"We four mean you no harm," the two-inch tall Lex said, projecting his voice through his drone's vocal cords.

Christmas' aim didn't faultier. "That doesn't mean you mean us good."

Lex had the Queen Bee drone point at Michael Westen who had ceased struggling against the nano-probes that had infiltrated his body. "I can stop the process that he's going through. Stop it now and later reverse it later. But I should do it sooner than later, because in a few moments he's going to get up and start fighting for the Borg."

Barney put a hand on Lee's shoulder. "You can stop whatever that stuff is doing to him?"

"I'll need your people and my drones to protect me while I calibrate my nano-probes for injection."

Barney hesitated. "So we let you stick him, and he won't become one of these cyber zombies." He gave them the once over again with his eyes. "No offense."

The miniaturize Lex almost laughed, despite the situation they were in. "He won't be cured right away. But I can free his mind. That's the easy part. Making it so his mind doesn't shut down from being overwhelmed by information the nano-probes will be filling it with, as well as blocking the pain from the intrusion caused by the nano-probes, that will be the more tricky part."

"And no other options." Lee Christmas was annoyed that they were just supposed to accept what this little man, who had the face of their enemy, was telling them. He was even more annoyed that the list in their head said he was trustworthy, and was very knowledgeable about the Borg.

"There is a third and fourth option. The third is that you kill him; consider it a mercy killing."

They didn't like that option. They were men of action; they fought hard to live, not die. Especially not like this.

"What's the fourth?" asked Caesar.

"I inoculate him, but make it so he stays unconscious, and we leave him here. Whoever wins, whether us or the Borg, can claim him."

"No, I don't like that," murmured Toll Road.

Barney nodded. "Westen was a little fancier than us, but, like us, he was a fighter. And fighters prefer to go down fighting. So get him up and going. We'll cover you."

"Hey, little guy." Lee leaned in closer to the Queen Bee drone. "Can you do something for those two klutzes," he asked, jerking a thumb towards Gunner and Yang.

Gunner sent a string of suggestive vulgarities in response. Yang may have as well, but it was in Chinese.

Lex calculated the time he was wasting. And still, the picture of the grizzled features of Mark Gordon, his God appointed conscience and mentor, kept coming to his mind, reminding him to do what was right, and that God would be there to help.

"Very well. I can adapt some nanites to enter the damaged sites and do repairs. They will try to block the pain receptors in those areas, but because of the narrowing of their parameters, some of the receptors may still report pain. And it won't be a small amount either."

"We can take it," Gunner interjected. "I just don't want to look like you guys."

Barney smirked. "On you, Gunner, it might be an improvement."

An explosion nearby got them moving. "Do what you said," Barney yelled. "Just remember, I'm watching you. Any shenanigans, and I'll break you like a Ken doll."

Lex didn't bother to mince anymore words. Instead, he knelt down and injected Michael Westen with the tubules from his wrist, sending out the nano-probes he had been designing the entire time they had been talking.

()

Captain Oliver Hudson was disgusted with himself. Somehow he had become separated from the men under his command. Worse, he had kept venturing forward with an odd motley crew that he had little in common with, and who had no sense of the chain of command. The only two he could even think of relying on were Captain Benjamin Sisko and police Detective Elisa Maza, both of whom were nowhere in sight. Instead, the only one he had to possibly watch his back was the alien lizard-man, Gul Dukat, and frankly, Hudson thought he trusted the Borg more than he did Dukat.

The Cardassian saw the four drones first. The drone made from Brenan Mulwray was part way trapped under a boulder. The other three drones, Brisco County, Jr., Dr. Emilio Lizardo and Rock-1, were turning toward them.

Dodging behind a partially destroyed stalagmite, Dukat managed to fire twice before being safe. He was using a higher setting for his weapon so when his first shot struck the Lizardo drone in the knee, the knee had been vaporized as well as cauterizing the leg. The next shot was also low, missing the three standing drone, but unexpectedly striking the trapped drone of Brenan Mulwray in the head, killing him instantly.

When Dukat moved to a preferable shelter, he wasn't as fortunate. The Rock-1 drone, having already been a cyborg before her assimilation, still had some of her original components. Sonic beams emitted from the blaster units mounted on her shoulders striking the scurrying Cardassian a glancing blow that spun him into a group of small boulders where he laid stunned.

Captain Hudson gritted his teeth with a snarl. Even though Dukat had been working for the Q2 team, the Cardassian was at least somewhat useful in keeping some of the drones occupied even if Hudson didn't trust him to not stab him in the back.

The Brisco County, Jr. drone was making it's way towards him and he had nowhere else to go since he had his back to the cave wall. Even the Lizardo drone was still firing at him, keeping him pinned down while the other drone moved in for the kill.

"What I wouldn't give for a hand grenade right now."

Taking out a small mirror, he used it to peek around the corner. Both the County and Rock-1 drone were coming towards him, though angled more towards were the fallen Cardassian was, but that still brought them directly past where he was. He steeled himself to make a move that he knew could very well be his last.

A large explosion nearby, followed by followed by the yelling form of Hellboy as he was thrown across the cavern over their heads. Realizing this is probably the best distraction he was going to get, Captain Hudson zipped around the corner, firing at the two closest drones…

…only to see the beams of his weapon fizzle harmlessly against their body force fields. He glanced stupidly down at his gun for a moment, just then realizing that he had forgot to change the frequency of his weapon after he had last used it on a drone.

He looked up again just in time to see the stun beams that put him into oblivion.

**AUTHOR's NoTeS**

_I know I said I'd have the Borg Queen be finally be put an end to, but this chapter just became too long. So I'm breaking it up, but the next chapter does start with the Borg Queen so the end is near._

_Now I'd actually been saving the Black Vulcan for this encounter. Black Vulcan's first encounter with the Borg had happened back in A Tangled Web Part 6, Chapter 1 when the holodeck created Al Bundy was using the universal remote created by Q to view the various worlds in the multiverse that a team of Borg drones had arrived on._

_I did rather mash the Super Friends world together with the Earth-1 in DC Comics. Those that understood what I just said had probably known that for quite a while, while those that don't, well, don't worry about it. I've tried to make it as interesting as possible, and hopefully that will make up for any serious snafus you may spot._

_Brainiac is more expressive of emotion, which is because of the emotion chip the Borg Queen provided to him, and also so she can lead him around by the nose more._

_John the telepath is from the 1970's British sci-fi series called The Tomorrow. And just want to add that I planned on using John before I heard that The Tomorrow People was going to be started up again._

_Saruman the White, Gandalf the Grey and Radagast the Brown are all together as this is when they were younger and well before the movies. I included Willow Ufgood and his teacher, the High Aldwin, for a little more magic._

_Sylar. I originally hadn't planned on having anyone from Heroes, but then Zachary Quinto was in Star Trek, so I finally decided to. Plus, Sylar adds a creepy edge to everything._

_I really wanted to include Primeval. If you haven't seen it, you should try it and see. Wasn't too sure about Warehouse 13, but I think I did okay._

_Now in Chapter 15, Mr. Peabody and the group he had gathered had come to the rescue of those under attack by the Xenomorphs (from the movie Aliens). Mr. Peabody's group consisted of Conan, Buzz Lightyear (Buzz Lightyear of Star Command), Alec Mack (The Secret World of Alex Mack), Kyle (Kyle XY), Cassie (Animorphs), Ben Tennyson (Ben 10), Captain Jack Sparrow, Johnny Smith (The Dead Zone) Hadji Quest-Singh (Johnny Quest), Hugo 'Hurley' Reyes (Lost), and Jim Taggart (Eureka). The reason for this group gathering wasn't just survival, but the fact that the Warlord Shank (Space Cases) and Dr. Emilio Lizardo (Adv. Of Buckaroo Banzi) had kidnapped his boy, Sherman, in order to get a hold of Peabody's WABAC time machine. I've alluded to the Borg having evidently coming across Mr. Peabody's group as well as Shank and Lizardo, and having lost some members to the ranks of the drones. This being the case, Mr. Peabody managed to get help from John's group._

_In Chapter 10, I had a bit of fun with Alf venturing out a little and coming across Jessie, James and Meowth, who were collecting many strange creatures that they thought were unusual Pokémons. Silly, I know. Must have been starting a new medication. Anyway, a number of those creatures have also evidently run into the Borg as a few have become drones or would eventually have been like Johnny 5 (Short Circuit), Oompa Loompa (Willy Wonka), Puggleglum (The Silver Chair), and E.T.. Howard the Duck joined John and the others to try free all the others._

_Manta and Moray are from one of the cartoon segment on Tarzan And The Super 7 (1978). I already used a number of other segments from here and I had wanted to use Manta and Moray but for the fact that Manta couldn't survive long out of water. But if he were a drone, the nanites would allow him to survive out of water._

**In order of appearance or mention****:**

**Black Vulcan** **of Earth-1 **(voiced by Buster Jones) – from the cartoon The All-New Super Friends Hour (1977-1978), Challenge Of The SuperFriends (1978), The World's Greatest SuperFriends (1979), Super Friends (1980-1983), SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984)

**Green Lantern of Earth-1 / Jordon, Hal** (voiced by Gerald Mohr) – from the cartoon The Superman/Aquaman Hour Of Adventure (1967-1968), Aquaman (1968), (voiced by Michael Rye) – Challenge Of The Super Friends (1978), Super Friends (1980-1983), SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984), The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (1985), from DC Comics Showcase #22 (1959) (mentioned only)

**Borg Queen** (Alice Krige) – from the movie Star Trek: First Contact (1996), (Susanna Thompson) – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager (1999-2000)

**Samurai of Earth-1 / Eto, Toshio **(voiced by Jack Angel) – from the cartoon Challenge Of The SuperFriends (1978), Super Friends (1980-1983), SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984), The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (1985) (mentioned only)

**Apache Chief** **of Earth-1 **(voiced by Michael Rye) – from the cartoon The All-New Super-Friends Hour (1977-1978), Challenge Of The SuperFriends (1978), Super Friends (1980-1983), SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984)

**Flash of Earth-1 / Allen, Barry** (voiced by Ray Owens) – from the cartoon The Superman/Aquaman Hour Of Adventure (1967-1968), Aquaman (1968), (voiced by Ted Knight) – Super Friends (1973), (voiced by Jack Angel) – Challenge Of The SuperFriends (1978), Super Friends (1980-1983), The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (1985), from DC Comics Showcase #4 (1956)

**Professor X / Xavier, Prof. Charles** (Patrick Stewart) – from the movie X-Men (2000), X-2: X-Men United (2003), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

**Brainiac** **of Earth-1 **(voiced by Ted Cassidy) – from the cartoon Challenge Of The Super-Friends (1978), (voiced by Stanley Ralph Ross) – Super Friends (1983), SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984), The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (1985), from DC Comics Action Comics #242 (1958)

**Luthor, Lex** **of Earth-1 **(voiced by Stan Jones) – from the cartoon Challenge Of The Super-Friends (1978), The World's Greatest SuperFriends (1979), SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984), from DC Comics Adventure Comics #271 (1960)

**Captain Cold of Earth-1 / Snart, Leonard** (voiced by Dick Ryal) – from the cartoon Challenge Of The Super-Friends (1978), from DC Comics Showcase #8 (1957)

**Toyman of Earth-1 / Nimball, Jack **(voiced by Frank Welker) – from the cartoon Challenge of the Super-Friends (1978), from DC Comics Action Comics #432 (1974)

**The Brain** **of Earth-1 **– from DC Comics Doom Patrol #86 (1964)

**Mallah, Monsieur,** **of Earth-1 **– from DC Comics Doom Patrol #86 (1964)

**Queen of Clubs** **of Earth-1 **– from DC Comics Justice League Of America #6 (1961)

**Cavalier of Earth-1 / Drake, Mortimer** – from DC Comics Detective Comics #81 (1943)

**Golden Glider of Earth-1 / Snart, Lisa** – from DC Comics Flash #250 (1977)

**Clock King of Earth-1 / Tockman, William** – from DC Comics World's Finest Comics #111 (1960)

**Catman of Earth-1 / Blake, Thomas** – from DC Comics Detective Comics #311 (1963)

**Hunter of Earth-1 / Orion, Adam** – from DC Comics Superboy #199 (1973)

**Superwoman** **of Earth-3 **– from DC Comics Justice League Of America #29 (1964)

**The Fiddler of Earth-2 / Brown, Isaac** – from DC Comics All-Flash Comics #32 (1947)

**Minister Blizzard** **of Earth-2 **– from DC Comics Wonder Woman #29 (1948)

**The Joker** **of Earth-2** –from DC Comics Batman #1 (1940)

**Luthor, Alexei,** **of Earth-2 **– from DC Comics Action Comics #23 (1940)

**Deathbolt of Earth-2 / Simmons, Jake** – from DC Comics All-Star Squadron #21 (1983)

**Simon, A.J.** (Jameson Parker) – from the TV series Simon & Simon (1981-1988)

**Hunt, Ethan** (Tom Cruise) – from the movie Mission: Impossible (1996)

**Steed, John Wickham Gascone Berresford **(Patrick Macnee) – from the TV series The Avengers (1961-1968)

**Mulder, Fox** (David Duchovny) – from the TV series X-Files (1993-2002)

**Murtaugh, Det. Roger** (Danny Glover) – from the movie Lethal Weapon (1987)

**Hawk** (Avery Brooks) – from the TV series A Man Called Hawk (1989)

**Ellison, Det. James** (Richard Burgi) – from the TV series Sentinel (1996-1999)

**Penhall, Doug** (Peter DeLuise) – from the TV series 21 Jump Street (1987-1992)

**Penhall, Joey** (Michael DeLuise) – from the TV series 21 Jump Street (1987-1992)

**Carter, Edison **(Matt Frewer) – from the TV series Max Headroom (1987)

**Rockatansky, **_**'Mad'**_** Max **(Mel Gibson) – from the movie Mad Max (1979), Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)

**Leela** (Louise Jameson) – from the TV series Doctor Who (1977-1978)

**County, Jr.,** **Brisco **(Bruce Campbell) – from the TV series The Adventures Of Brisco County, Jr. (1993-1994)

**Rock-1 / Bennett, Meg** (voiced by Bobbi Block) – from the cartoon Bionic Six (1987)

**Doctor, The 7th** **/ Professor, The** (Sylvester McCoy) – from the TV series Doctor Who (1987-1989) (mentioned only)

**Zanya** – from the comic G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #2 (2001)

**The Master** – from the TV series Doctor Who

**Finn, Riley** (Marc Blucas) – from the TV series Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1999-2002)

**Sparrow, Captain Jack** (Johnny Depp) – from the movie Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl (2003), Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006), Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End (2007), Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

**Lightyear, Buzz** (voiced by Patrick Warburton) – from the cartoon Buzz Lightyear Of Star Command (2000-2001)

**Lizardo, Dr. Emilio** (John Lithgow) – from the movie The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzi Across The 8th Dimension (1984)

**Mulwray, Brennan** (Victor Webster) – from the TV series Mutant X (2001-2004)

**Leatherhead** (voiced by Jim Cummings) – from the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987-1996)

**Slash **(voiced by Pat Fraley) – from the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987-1996)

**Stockman, Baxter **(voiced by Pat Fraley) – from the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987-1996)

**Shredder** (voiced by James Avery) – from the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987-1996) (mentioned only)

**Sil **(Natasha Henstridge) – from the movie Species (1995)

**Doyle** (Brandy Ledford) – from the TV series Andromeda (2000-2005)

**Cyborg of Earth-1 / Stone, Victor** (voiced by Ernie Hudson) – from the cartoon The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (1985), from DC Comics DC Comics Presents #26 (1980)

**Lore** (Brent Spiner) – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation (1988-1993)

**Batman of Earth-1 / Wayne, Bruce** (voiced by Olan Soule) – from the cartoon The Batman/Superman Hour (1968-1969), Super Friends (1973-1977), The All-New Super Friends Hour (1977-1978), Challenge Of The SuperFriends (1978), The World's Greatest SuperFriends (1979), Super Friends (1980-1983), (voiced by Adam West) – SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984), The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (1985), from DC Comics Batman #62 (1950) (mentioned only)

**F.L.U.F.F.I.** – from the cartoon Bionic Six (1987)

**Zo'or** (Anita La Selva) – from the TV series Earth: Final Conflict (1997-2002)

**Quinn, Danny** (Jason Flemyng) – from the TV series Primeval (2009-2011)

**Maitland, Abby** (Hannah Spearritt) – from the TV series Primeval (2007-2011)

**John **(Nicholas Young) – from the TV series The Tomorrow People (1973-1979)

**Saruman the White** (Christopher Lee) – from the movies The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug (2013), The Hobbit: There And Back Again (2014), The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Rings (2001), The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers (2002), The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King (2003)

**Gandalf the Grey** (Ian McKellen) – from the movies The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug (2013), The Hobbit: There And Back Again (2014), The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Rings (2001), The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers (2002), The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King (2003)

**Radagast the Brown** (Sylvester McCoy) – from the movies The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug (2013), The Hobbit: There And Back Again (2014)

**Ufgood, Willow** (Warwick Davis) – from the movie Willow (1988)

**High Aldwin** (Billy Barty) – from the movie Willow (1988)

**Sylar **(Zachary Quinto) – from the TV series Heroes (2006-2010)

**Desaad **(voiced by Rene Auberjonois) – from the cartoon SuperFriends: The Legendary Super-Powers Show (1984), The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (1985) (mentioned only)

**Darkseid **(voiced by Frank Welker) – from the cartoon SuperFriends: The Legendary Super-Powers Show (1984), The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (1985) (mentioned only)

**Temple, Connor **(Andrew Lee Potts) – from the TV series Primeval (2007-2011)

**Nielsen, Artie **(Saul Rubinek) – from the TV series Warehouse 13 (2009-present)

**Franklin, Benjamin **_**'Ben'**_(mentioned only)

**Dunham, Olivia** (Anna Torv) – from the TV series Fringe (2008-2013)

**Peabody, Mr.** (voiced by Walter Tetley) – from the cartoon Rocky And His Friends _'Peabody's Improbable History'_ (1959-1964)

**Harkness, Captain Jack **(John Barrowman) – from the TV series Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood (2006-2011)

**Axe, Sam **(Bruce Campbell) – from the TV series Burn Notice (2007-present)

**Kull** (Kevin Sorbo) – from the movie Kull The Conqueror (1997)

**Manta** (voiced by Joe Stern) – from the cartoon Tarzan And The Super 7 _'Manta And Moray'_ (1978-1980)

**Moray** (voiced by Joan Van Ark) – from the cartoon Tarzan And The Super 7 _'Manta And Moray'_ (1978-1980)

**Croft, Lara **(Angelina Jolie) – from the movie Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle Of Life (2003)

**Glenanne, Fiona **(Gabrielle Anwar) – from the TV series Burn Notice (2007-present)

**Castle, Richard **(Nathan Fillion) – from the TV series Castle (2009-present)

**Beckett, Kate **(Stana Katic) – from the TV series Castle (2009-present)

**Howard** (Ed Gale) – from the movie Howard The Duck (1986)

**Blake, Balthazar **(Nicolas Cage) – from the movie The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010)

**Conan** (Arnold Schwarzenegger) – from the movie Conan The Barbarian (1982), Conan The Destroyer (1984)

**Rambo, John **(Sylvester Stallone) – from the movies First Blood (1982), Rambo: First Blood II (1985), Rambo III (1988), Rambo (2008)

**Szalinski, Wayne** (Rick Moranis) – from the movies Honey, I Shrunk The Kids (1989), Honey, I Blew Up The Kid (1992), Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves (1997)

**Thompson, Sr., Russell **(Matt Frewer) – from the movie Honey, I Shrunk The Kids (1989) (mentioned only)

**Leeloo **(Milla Jovovich) – from the movie The Fifth Element (1997)

**Callen, G **(Chris O'Donnell) – from the TV series NCIS: Los Angeles (2009-present)

**White, Walter **(Bryan Cranston) – from the TV series Breaking Bad (2008-2013) (mentioned only)

**Booth, Special Agent Seeley** (David Boreanaz) – from the TV series Bones (2005-present)

**Brennan, Dr. Temperance **_**'Bones'**_(Emily Deschanel) – from the TV series Bones (2005-present)

**Hanna, Sam **(L.L. Cool J)– from the TV series NCIS: Los Angeles (2009-present) (mentioned only

**Blye, Kensi** (Daniela Ruah) – from the TV series NCIS: Los Angeles (2009-present) (mentioned only)

**Deeks, Marty** (Eric Christian Olsen) – from the TV series NCIS: Los Angeles (2009-present) (mentioned only)

**Lange Henrietta **_**'Hetty'**_(Linda Hunt)– from the TV series NCIS: Los Angeles (2009-present) (mentioned only)

**Alice** – (Milla Jovovich) – from the movies Resident Evil (2002), Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)

**Puddleglum the Marsh-wiggle** (Tom Baker) – from the TV series The Silver Chair: The Chronicles of Narnia (1990)

**Foley, Jake** (Christopher Gorham) – from the TV series Jake 2.0 (2003-2004)

**Gump, Forrest** (Tom Hanks) – from the movie Forrest Gump (1994)

**Sinestro** **of Earth-1 / Sinestro, Thaal** (voiced by Vic Perrin) – from the cartoon Challenge of the Super-Friends (1978), Super Friends (1983), from DC Comics Green Lantern #7 (1961) (mentioned only)

**Superman of Earth-1 / Kent, Clark / Kal-El** (voiced by Bud Collyer) – from the cartoon The New Adventures Of Superman (1966-1970), The Superman/Aquaman Hour Of Adventure (1967-1968), Aquaman (1968), The Batman/Superman Hour (1968-1969), (voiced by Danny Dark) – Super Friends (1973-1977), The All-New Super Friends Hour (1977-1978), Challenge Of The SuperFriends (1978), The World's Greatest SuperFriends (1979), Super Friends (1980-1983), SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984), The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (1985), from DC Comics More Fun Comics #101 (1945) (mentioned only)

**Gorilla Grodd** **of Earth-1 **(voiced by Stanley Ralph Ross) – from the cartoon Challenge of the Super-Friends (1978), Super Friends (1983), from DC Comics Flash #106 (1959) (mentioned only)

**Wonder Woman of Earth-1 / Diana, Princess / Prince, Diana** (voiced by Shannon Farnon) – from the cartoon Super Friends (1973-1977), The All-New Super Friends Hour (1977-1978), Challenge Of The SuperFriends (1978), The World's Greatest SuperFriends (1979), Super Friends (1980-1983), SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984), The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (1985), from DC Comics Wonder Woman #98 (1958) (mentioned only)

**Aquaman of Earth-1 / Curry, Arthur / Orin **(voiced by Marvin Miller) – from the cartoon The Superman/Aquaman Hour Of Adventure (1967-1968), Aquaman (1968), Super Friends (1973-1977), The All-New Super Friends Hour (1977-1978), Challenge Of The SuperFriends (1978), The World's Greatest SuperFriends (1979), Super Friends (1980-1983), SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984), The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (1985), from DC Comics More Fun Comics #73 (1941) (mentioned only)

**Mogo** **/ Green Lantern **– from DC Comics Green Lantern #188 (1985) (mentioned only)

**Ross, Barney** (Sylvester Stallone) – from the movies The Expendables (2010), The Expendables 2 (2012)

**Caesar, Hale** (Terry Crews) – from the movies The Expendables (2010), The Expendables 2 (2012)

**Church, Mr.** (Bruce Willis) – from the movies The Expendables (2010), The Expendables 2 (2012) (mentioned only)

**Trench** (Arnold Schwarzenegger) – from the movies The Expendables (2010), The Expendables 2 (2012) (mentioned only)

**Christmas, Lee** (Jason Statham) – from the movies The Expendables (2010), The Expendables 2 (2012)

**Toll Road** (Randy Couture) – from the movies The Expendables (2010), The Expendables 2 (2012)

**Jensen, **_**'Gunner'**_ (Dolph Lundgren) – from the movies The Expendables (2010), The Expendables 2 (2012)

**Yang, Yin** (Jet Li) – from the movies The Expendables (2010), The Expendables 2 (2012)

**Kano **(Trevor Goddard) – from the movie Mortal Kombat (1995)

**Westen, Michael** (Jeffrey Donovan) – from the TV series Burn Notice (2007-present)

**Hellboy** (Ron Perlman) – from the movie Hellboy (2004), Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)

**Ramjet **(voiced by Jack Angel) – from the cartoon The Transformers (1985-1986), the movie The Transformers: The Movie (1986)

**Alpha Hirogen** (Vaughn Armstrong) – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001)

**Lightyear, Buzz** (voiced by Patrick Warburton) – from the cartoon Buzz Lightyear Of Star Command (2000-2001)

**Doctor, The 4th **(Tom Baker) – from the TV series Doctor Who (1974-1981)

**Dukat, Gul** (Marc Alaimo) – from the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999)

**Hudson, Capt. Oliver** (Michael Ironside) – from the TV series SeaQuest DSV (1995-1996)

**Sisko, Capt. Benjamin** (Avery Brooks) – from the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999)

**Maza, Elisa **(voiced by Salli Richardson-Whitfield) – from the cartoon Gargoyles (1994-1996), Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles (1996)

**Weasley, Ginevra **_**'Ginny'**_ (Bonnie Wright) – from the movie Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone (2001), Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets (2002), Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban (2004), Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire (2005), Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix (2007), Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince (2009), Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010), Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)

**Sapphire** (Joanna Lumley) – from the TV series Sapphire & Steel (1979-1982)

**Luthor, Lex** (Michael Rosenbaum) – from the TV series Smallville (2001-2011)

**Seavers, Colt** (Lee Majors) – from the TV series The Fall Guy (1981-1986)

**Poncherello, Officer Francis Llewellyn **_**'Ponch'**_ (Erik Estrada) – from the TV series CHiPs (1977-1986)

**Queen Bee of Earth-1 / Zazzala** – from DC Comics Justice League Of America #23 (1963)

**Kent, Clark Jerome / Kal-El** (Tom Welling) – from the TV series Smallville (2001-2011) (mentioned only)

**Lang, Lana** (Kristin Kreuk) – from the TV series Smallville (2001-2009) (mentioned only)

**Sullivan, Chloe** (Allison Mack) – from the TV series Smallville (2001-2011) (mentioned only)

**The Devil** (John Glover) – from the TV series Brimstone (1998-1999) (mentioned only)

**Luthor, Lionel** (John Glover) – from the TV series Smallville (2001-2011) (mentioned only)

**Gordon, Mark** (Victor French) – from the TV series Highway To Heaven (1984-1989) (mentioned only)

**Smith, Jonathan** (Michael Landon) – from the TV series Highway To Heaven (1984-1989) (mentioned only)


	54. Chapter 54

**A Tangled Web Part 8**

**Chapter 54**

_In addition to the Characters Listed In Order Of Appearance at the end of the chapter, I also added a list I had to keep that I called Dead In The Web as I had to keep track of a lot of characters. It's just for the characters that died in Part 8 so take a look if you are curious._

_i_

**The Final Chamber**

The Borg Queen tried to keep her sole focus on the new drone host that she was overseeing the assimilation of. If was a surprisingly difficult feat as she usually had her awareness spread far and wide throughout the Borg Collective, instead she was only taking in the senses of a handful of drones working on the intriguing project before her. A remarkable female specimen with both alien and Human DNA combined within it. The DNA sequences were an incredible find, and unlike any other she had ever come across.

Behind her, she could hear and feel the frustration that Brainiac was struggling through as more interlopers made their way towards them, intent on stopping them. She smiled as she shook her head. As if they really had a chance of stopping her! No, if Brainiac was going to be of any worth as a mate to her, then he was going to have to grab a hold of the reigns now. Otherwise, he would never be able to coordinate the many trillions of drones they will soon create to conquer and spread, planet to planet, galaxy to galaxy, universe to universe. It sounded so glorious to her. She did hope that he would prove worthy. She liked the thought of being able to share everything with as an equal.

Then something unexpected happened. Sil, the hybrid whose assimilation she was observing, became aware. Sil's eyes darted back and forth, before lashing out with her remaining arm, claws fully extended, and slashed through the face and neck of the Sleestak drone standing over her, killing it. She then twisted and kicked, sending the Alexei Luthor drone flying back into the drone she had made out of Forrest Gump. Sil climbed into a crouched position, he newly attached prosthetic limb hanging limply at her side in place of her arm. She leapt forward only to bounce off the invisible force field dome that held the ten of them inside. She whirled around and put out a strange, other-worldly growl.

"What's happening?" snapped Brainiac. "Why wasn't she responding to our controls?"

"I don't know!" the Borg Queen barked back. "I need to examine her to find out. Stay focused on the forces outside; I will deal with her."

Sil hadn't been idle. She had noticed the falling rock dust from the battle around them sliding down the invisible dome over them, outlining it briefly. Sensing no way out, she chose to make the enclosure safer for herself by eliminating the others trapped there with her.

With a great leap, she was across the enclosed space, tackling Cyborg to the ground, while at the same time lashing out at Lex Luthor, sending him flying into a table full of equipment.

Jake Foley, still a stage one drone, raised a small laser pistol to protect his queen with, when he suddenly went limp. The body armored Sil was about to round on him when the Forrest Gump drone managed to stun the rampaging alien/Human hybrid.

Everything was silent for a moment as the Borg Queen and the Gump drone went forward and started scanning Sil's stunned form.

"Everything all right now?" asked Brainiac, who was still focusing most of his attention on organizing the drones outside.

"No, not remotely," she answered. "Somehow she was disconnected from the Collective."

Brainiac frowned. He had lost connection with a few drones here and there, but had assumed that it was due to them being abruptly destroyed in battle, not disconnected. "Is this some new attack from the others?"

"I'm not sure, but the disconnection seems to have happened internally, within the Collective itself."

Jake Foley had sat up by then, looking around. Seeing Lore, Jake tossed his laser pistol towards him. "Lore, kill the queen immediately!"

With a quick grin on his face, Lore snatched the weapon out of the air even as he ducked down into a roll, and began firing at the Borg Queen.

The Gump drone stepped between the murderous android and his queen, the laser striking him in the shoulder before he could fire back.

"Time to die, queenie!" snarled Lore, firing repeatedly at her, only to look in dismay when the beam dissipated against the force field around her body. Growling in anger, Lore ducked down before she could return fire at him, and adjusted the frequency of his weapon, setting it on it's highest setting.

He had to move from his position to another table when the Alexei Luthor drone found a weapon from somewhere and began firing at him, too.

What Lore wasn't prepared for was the white sound blaster used by Cyborg. The blast of white sound tore apart his protection and shredded a great deal of his clothing, skin and even removed an arm and leg before his head flew off, bouncing against the wall of the force field dome.

Jake Foley had not been idle. Seeing no way out from the dome they were in, Jake worked through what he could remember, managing to figure out what the device was that was generating the force field. Then seeing a small, but powerful surgical laser, he began to cut the force field generator up into as many pieces as possible. The resulting explosion had caught him off guard, but he only suffered a few pieces of shrapnel, none were lethal or hindered his movements much.

Unfortunately, trying to duck down and escape unnoticed was not as easy for Jake. "Crap! Crap! Craaaap!" he muttered to himself as he scurried down low, almost on his hands and knees. He hurried toward some nearby rubble, hoping for a chance of cover. Clutched in his arms was the prosthetic limb that was to be attached to a new drone. He had hoped to use the limb as a weapon, a sort of gun, to stop any drones in his way, but he couldn't make it work. Not that it mattered. The Borg Queen had found a similar prosthetic limb and aimed it at Jake. Only this device worked as it was supposed to, under the instructions of the Borg Queen. She fired the prosthetic limb personally, striking Jake Foley in the back, vaporizing him.

She put down the prosthetic device with a sigh. "What a waste of perfectly fine material."

Brainiac grimaced, but said nothing. He was glad that Lore had been destroyed, but Jake was to have been his first project creating a drone. Still, in battles, one must accept that practically anything could happen. Especially when emotions were running high.

"My dear," she said, as the drones – Cyborg, Alexei Luthor, Lex Luthor, and the partially damaged Forrest Gump – all took a position of protection around her. Gump was the only fully processed drone; the other three were still in the first stages, though the superhero Cyborg had already come with cybernetic parts that he could use.

"Yes?" asked Brainiac.

"I'm going to have to take a moment to fully immerse myself within the Collective. Somehow drones are being disconnected, and that needs to stop now."

He nodded in agreement to her assessment. "I will see that your body is protected. And re-grown if it comes to that." He then sent a command out to several drones that were not yet engaged in battle to guard their vulnerable queen. The two Luthor drones were put to the task of creating another force field generator to shield them again as quickly as they could. The Gump drone was to repair itself, then see to the restoring of the alien hybrid Sil to the Collective. Brainiac returned his attention to the drones fighting under his direction.

oOoOoOo

**THE COLLECTIVE MIND OF THE BORG**

Neo came to a stop before another Sleestak body template with a red aura, a representative of the drone out in the real world. With a ragged breath, he reached out his right hand wearing a red glove to touch the Sleestak template. As soon as contact was made, the template disappeared, meaning that the host was now awake, aware and in control of it's own actions again.

In his front shirt pocket, rode a small, miniaturized computer program made in the image of the Lex Luthor (from Smallville), who had been directing him. "C'mon, move it. There is another local template just a hundred yards straight ahead of us."

Neo wiped the sweat from his brow. He knew he shouldn't be experiencing tiredness, sweat or any weakness, but the Borg Collective was not the Matrix. He could not move with the power and speed that he was used to. But he had been able to manipulate the environment to some extent, but it was leaving him exhausted.

"Gotta catch my breath, Little Lex," Neo said to the aptly named program.

"We have to keep moving! The longer we are in one place, the more likely we will be detected!"

"And you have been," came the cold, feminine voice oft to one side.

Neo turned to see a female Borg drone with a red aura standing there in the aisle between the templates. "Not good," he muttered quietly to Little Lex. "You have a plan for this?"

'How about _'escape'_? That sound good to you?"

For half a moment Neo considered it, but wasn't sure how he was to exit the Collective. "Can you get us back to the real world?" he murmured.

Little Lex looked up at him. "Sorry, chum. I've been trying, but looks like the wicked witch has walled us off."

Raising his voice, he finally addressed the female drone. "So, you're the Borg Queen then?"

"That I am." She was studying them as if they were under a microscope, making Neo feel unsettled. "I've never had anyone break into the Collective before. I will be putting up better defenses after I study how you did it."

"I always liked coming in first." Neo stood tall, and tried to will the strength back into his body. The tiredness of the exertions he had put himself through racing around in the Collective weighed on him, and would not be denied. But that didn't mean he was just going to just give up and die either.

The Borg Queen smirked at his cheek. "You shall be first in another way, too. The first being to be assimilated from inside the Collective." Twin tubules extended from above each of her arms.

Glancing around for anything he could use as a weapon, all he could see were the templates themselves. "I'll pass on that, thank you for the thought though." Neo stepped back behind a tall, alien template of some large thing that may have been part plant, and sported barbed knuckles. He wanted to keep something between him and the Borg Queen, hopefully to give him a chance to escape.

He just barely jumped back in time when the alien template in front of him suddenly tried to grab him. He fell backwards, almost tripping over his own feet. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted another template become animated and move to cut him off. This humanoid alien, though mostly normal sized, could be construed as tall due to the fact of it's long cone-shaped head. Other templates were also beginning to move, all towards Neo, trapping him.

"There is nowhere to go," the Borg Queen stated calmly, as she eased around the frame of the plant-like alien thing. "These," she waved her arms out to include all the temple drones around them, "shall be the company you keep for as long as we exist. You shall be closer than any family, more powerful than any species. You will be Borg. And you will serve us with everything that you are."

Neo frowned. "I'm already in a serious relationship, so I really can't join you. Besides, Trinity would kill us both if I did join you, so it's really better that I don't."

Little Lex looked up at him from where he hung on it Neo's shirt pocket. "Not smart," he judged.

"Your silly bravado is getting you nowhere," the Borg Queen snapped. "Enough with this foolishness. It's time to end this so that I can see to restoring the number of drones I have."

She reached out with her hand, the tubules reaching out to make contact with the trespassing Neo. Neo, knowing he didn't have the strength to escape, decided on the bold move of capturing the queen. With all the speed he could muster, Neo grabbed a hold of the tubules and jerked her hard towards him, twisting around her, so that he held her from behind tight with both hands.

Except she was no longer there. As he had grabbed her from behind, she had disappeared.

"Where is she?" he demanded, turning around and around, not seeing her anywhere.

He stopped abruptly when Little Lex started to laugh.

"What's so funny?"

"You did it!" exclaimed the computer program.

"I did? What exactly do you mean?"

"The Borg Queen's gone. You kicked her out of her own kingdom once you touched her with that red glove I gave you."

"You mean…"

Little Lex was grinning madly. "She's trapped out in the real world, stuck in only one body. Just like we had been doing to all the other local templates."

Neo looked at the templates that had been surrounding him. They weren't moving anymore. In fact they were starting to slowly fade away, the cohesion of their shapes beginning to dissipate.

"Looks like the lock she had on the door is unlatched again, so I think it's time to send you back, too."

Neo looked down at the computerized Lex Luthor program. "What will happen to you?"

"Oh, I'll go back to my maker, and be analyzed and reabsorbed into his essence."

The description sent a shiver down Neo's back. "Is that what you want?"

Little Luthor looked up to regard him. "You are reading too much into this, okay? Luthor created me to be as much like himself as possible. He and I are pretty much the same as far as identity goes, so yeah, I want to go back and be part of him again."

Neo shrugged, not knowing what else to say at that point. "All right then."

"Good. Now let's get you back to your Trinity before she starts hunting down my creator."

Neo cracked a smile as they slipped away from the vanishing Collective.

oOoOoOo

A scream filled with fear and rage traveled throughout the cavern, cutting through most of the ongoing battles.

Brainiac rushed to the side of his queen shoving the Gump drone out of his way. He knelt down to where she sat on her knees. He began scanning her for any signs of injury, but found none. Yet somehow she was completely cut off from the Borg Collective. That was when he realized he could no longer sense the Collective either.

"What has happened?" he demanded.

"He disconnected me! Somehow he disconnected me!" she screamed, staring down at her hands in horror. "He did it when he touched me!"

"Then why am I no longer connected? No one has touched me. I should still be connected to the Collective, and thus able to restore you."

She shook her head with exasperation. "Your connection was routed through me so I could monitor your progress."

Brainiac froze. "You didn't trust me." It was a statement, not a question.

"You did not know the full measures of the Borg, your growth had to be monitored so as to not quickly overwhelm you while you acclimated to your new role; a role that had never existed before."

Brainiac had to give her the benefit of the doubt. He had thrown in his lot with hers, casting aside his companions in the Legion of Doom in order to join her. "Can we restore hold of the Collective?"

She drew in a breath, calming herself. "Maybe. If it hasn't collapsed already."

The green-skinned Coluan android nodded. "What do we need?"

She raised her right hand and extended the tubules in it. "I could try connecting to it through one of our drones, reestablishing our foothold there."

"So a drone, then." He looked around and saw Forrest Gump climbing to his feet.

Walking swiftly over, Brainiac grabbed Gump from behind, forcing him to quickly march over to where the Borg Queen was, despite the injury Gump had from acting as a Human shield earlier.

Forrest Gump gave her an accusing glare. "You lied to me, ma'am," he stated in his slow southern accent. "You said doing this to me would make us all the same, that it would make me smart!"

"I don't have time to talk about it, Forrest," she responded, sending her tubules into his neck, letting them connect to his spine, and taking control of his entire being.

She concentrated on finding the Collective, though Gump tried to resist her efforts. She could see it as a mist, but not make a connection. She tried several times before determining that the Collective had truly fallen.

"It's gone," she whispered. "It's collapsing without me there to hold it together."

"Are you sure?" Brainiac demanded, frustrated at the thought that the wealth of information and power that he had given up everything for could now be out of his grasp. True, he did have the data on several subjects that he had perused, but he had not gone further than that due to more pressing matters. "Is there no way to get it back?"

"We could rebuild from nothing. Then find a means to either take over Gallifrey or try reconnect with the Borg from my home universe, making me whole again, as well as gather reinforcements."

"Or you could just die!" Lex Luthor, co-leader of the Legion of Doom with Brainiac, began firing a pulsar rifle at the two conspirators, striking Gump who was down and out.

Brainiac used his body to shield his mate, losing an arm, as it turned into a nasty mess of slag made up of polymers, metals, and undetermined charcoal, filling the air with smoke and sparks.

The Borg Queen kept low as she moved behind an operating table, glancing around for any type of weapon she could use before settling on a laser knife used in amputating limbs.

"Where do you think you're going?" growled the red-haired Alexei Luthor as he stood over her with a laser gun in his hand.

"Do you have her?" called over his doppelganger, the Lex Luthor of Earth-1.

"Of course I do!" snapped Alexei. "I'm not an incompetent like you! I actually accomplish my goals!"

In one quick moment, the Borg Queen had activated the laser knife at its highest setting and slashed it across the upper legs of Alexei Luthor, instantly amputating them.

Alexei cried out in pain and astonishment as he toppled over, his arms reaching out to his side to catch himself. The Borg Queen used his surprise against him, slashing with the laser knife a second time, this time the results decapitated the evil genius. The villain's head had barely hit the floor by the time she had snapped the laser gun out of his limp hands.

The remaining Luthor was swearing up a storm, all while firing at her and racing toward a table that he knocked over on it's side in order to use it as cover. However, he had not been ready for the new hero Cyborg to stand up near with his white sound blaster primed to fire at nearly point blank range.

The black superhero glared at the bald villain. "It's over, Lu-"

A blast struck Cyborg in the side, knocking him over as the smell of heated metal and burnt flesh permeated the immediate area where he collapsed.

Judging from the angle the attack had come from, Luthor determined that the shot had to have come from either Brainiac or the Borg Queen. He was guessing Brainiac. "Thanks," he shouted. "But I'm still going to kill the two of you!"

"We've always worked well together, you and I. You should join us, Lex," Brainiac's voice called out to him. "We could be a triumvirate."

"Ha! Even if I were to trust you, I'm not one for polygamous relationships!" Luthor yelled with a growl. "Besides, neither of you are my type!"

"Then consider the offer reneged!" retorted the Borg Queen, firing in rapid succession with the weapon in her hand.

Brainiac, seeing something on the bench next to him, pulled it down closer to him with his one good hand. "Why don't you use this?" With his intact arm, he held up an unattached prosthetic limb used by the drones. "That way I can use your laser gun, and increase our offense and defence."

She scanned the equipment, checking for any damages before smiling. "This will work." The tubules in her arm stretched out like cables, connecting to the Borg prosthetic, while she hoisted it in her arms quite easily with her augmented strength. The body she had now was faster as well as stronger than her regular drones. She found it to be advantageous to be stronger than attackers would expect. Brainiac nodded at her appreciation and took the laser gun in his good hand.

"You might as well give up," called out a voice. "We have you outnumbered and outmatched."

It brought a scowl to Brainiac's face. It was the third Luthor. The one that had somehow come to control a small remnant of the Borg while venturing in another universe. In their last encounter, Brainiac had managed to shrink that Luthor to two inches tall. But the miniaturized Luthor had not been fazed, and had managed to rally the drones under his control to push Brainiac and his forces away.

Whipping into the open, he opened fire, striking the Queen Bee drone that had been carrying the minute Luthor in the face. The drone staggered for a moment before falling face first onto the rock floor, pinning the two-inch Luthor in the front pocket. Brainiac's other shots had been mostly force the other attackers for cover. He had almost hit Barney Ross, but had at least got a partial hit on Black Vulcan who was just coming up to them. Before he could fire any more, Elisa Maza had used her Alchemy Gun to create a barrier to protect them.

Brainiac turned and slumped back toward his mate. "The miniaturized Luthor is down but not out."

She had been firing in another direction at the other Luthor. She ducked down next to him. "I feel so out of touch. So alone." She glanced up at him, sharing a look of sorrow, that surprised Brainiac.

An idea came to Luthor. "We don't have to be. The miniaturized Luthor has a small fragment of the Borg Collective and at least two remaining drones. We could usurp it from him. It could be a new starting point for us both."

"The odds of us reaching him, not to mention defeating the others, are becoming miniscule. Are chances for survival would be better if we were to outright flee."

The Coluan android shook his head. "You and I are more intelligent than all of them put together. If we put our minds to it, we will prevail."

Now she was smiling. "This is why I chose you: your overcoming attitude and brilliance."

Then quickly lifted her weapon, aiming above her mate's head, and fired a strong blast that caught the leaping Hellboy mid-air, sending him flying backwards.

"The best attack is the easiest. Most of those here are oxygen breathers. A poison to the air will eliminate them, but not harm the drones we wish to harvest."

Her eyes lit up. "Plus, once we have the fragmented Collective, we could also re-induct our lost drones, restoring out numbers quickly."

Brainiac nodded. "So best gas we can use is-" He jerked forward oddly, almost as if he had stumbled.

Her look of concern grew when she saw the large knife sticking out of his chest. Looking behind him, she watches in trepidation as the bulky figure of the Alpha Hirogen rose up seemingly out of nowhere with Brainiac skewered from behind.

"It has been a merry hunt," stated the large alien. "But in the end you are mine as was inevitable." With a blade in his other hand, he swiped it through Brainiac neck, neatly severing the head from the body.

The Hirogen swung the body at the Borg Queen, knocking her weapon to the ground, leaving her defenseless.

"And now it is time to put an end to you."

As the Alpha Hirogen reached for his holster to drew his weapon and put an end to the Borg Queen, a voice cried out behind him.

"_Petrificus Totalus_!"

Ginny Weasley was knackered and nearly magically exhausted. She had teamed up with the Alpha Hirogen early on, only using her magic when absolutely necessary, which in his hectic battle zone had turned out to be once or twice a minute. To get them close to the Borg Queen, she had used a Notice-Me-Not spell on her and the Alpha Hirogen close enough to disarm them. She felt a little bad about betraying the Alpha Hirogen like this; they had saved each other a few times as they crossed the battleground. Still, he was an agent of Q2, and she couldn't let him claim victory if it meant that the evil one on that side would get their wishes fulfilled.

As the red-headed witch started to come around the massive alien so that she could train her wand on the Borg Queen, the Borg Queen gave the Alpha Hirogen a mighty kick, toppling the towering alien back onto the surprised witch.

The Borg Queen hurried forward and took the oversized weapon out of the Alpha Hirogen's holster. Then, keeping low, she managed to scoop up Brainiac's head and placed it under one arm, and took off for a side-tunnel that she knew of nearby.

She was nearly there when her weapon suddenly vibrated so hard that it fell out of her hands.

"That's far enough, I think, don't you?"

She looked up at the curly-haired time-lord with the long scarf and big teeth. "You!"

He nodded. "Yes, me. It's because of me that you learned of this micro-verse or as some have called it, _'The Land of the Lost'_. You gain the knowledge of this place when I had been turned into a drone back in that land of the cowboys. You escaped there to come here before all the drones there were restored to normal. You had learned from me that my TARDIS could travel from here to ancient Gallifrey, which you hoped to take over." He happily popped a jelly baby into his mouth. "Well, I'm here to tell you it's not going to happen."

With a savage yell, she hurtled Brainiac's head at the Doctor, catching him by surprise as it struck him in the hand, knocking his sonic screwdriver away from him.

Before he could regain his weapon of choice, she was upon him. "I will have your Gallifrey, starting with you." Her tubules extended from her wrist and prepared to jab into the side of his neck as he struggled to get away from her. "Resistance if futile, Doctor. You shall be the cornerstone of my new Collec-"

A phaser fired at one of the highest settings vaporized most of the top part of her body, leaving the rest to gravity.

The Doctor hurriedly detached himself from what remained of her body, taking extra care around the twitching tubules. "That was rather close," he commented, as he wiped his brow, before turning to his rescuer.

What the time-lord saw shocked him. "You? But I saw you get shot?"

Gul Dukat leaned against the cavern wall with a wide grin, his phaser still in his hand. "A Cardassian knows when to play dead, and when to get up again to unexpectedly attack."

"But that means…"

If anything, the Cardassian's smile widened. "That my team won!"

**AUTHOR's NoTeS**

_I finally put an end to the Borg Queen. I should have only two chapters after this. The first to wrap up all the people in the Land of the Lost. Then the next chapter will be about the results of Q losing._

**In order of appearance or mention****:**

**Borg Queen** (Alice Krige) – from the movie Star Trek: First Contact (1996), (Susanna Thompson) – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager (1999-2000)

**Sil **(Natasha Henstridge) – from the movie Species (1995)

**Brainiac** **of Earth-1 **(voiced by Ted Cassidy) – from the cartoon Challenge Of The Super-Friends (1978), (voiced by Stanley Ralph Ross) – Super Friends (1983), SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984), The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (1985), from DC Comics Action Comics #242 (1958)

**Sleestak** – from the TV series Land Of The Lost (1974-1976)

**Luthor, Alexei,** **of Earth-2 **– from DC Comics Action Comics #23 (1940)

**Gump, Forrest** (Tom Hanks) – from the movie Forrest Gump (1994)

**Cyborg of Earth-1 / Stone, Victor** (voiced by Ernie Hudson) – from the cartoon The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (1985), from DC Comics DC Comics Presents #26 (1980)

**Luthor, Lex** **of Earth-1 **(voiced by Stan Jones) – from the cartoon Challenge Of The Super-Friends (1978), The World's Greatest SuperFriends (1979), SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984), from DC Comics Adventure Comics #271 (1960)

**Foley, Jake** (Christopher Gorham) – from the TV series Jake 2.0 (2003-2004)

**Lore** (Brent Spiner) – from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation (1988-1993)

**Neo / Anderson, Tom** (Keanu Reeves) – from the movie The Matrix (1999), The Matrix Reloaded (2003), The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

**Luthor, Lex** (Michael Rosenbaum) – from the TV series Smallville (2001-2011)

**The Thing** (James Arness) – from the movie The Thing From Another World (1951)

**Conehead, Beldar** (Dan Aykroyd) – from the movie Coneheads (1993)

**Trinity** (Carrie-Anne Moss) – from the movie The Matrix (1999), The Matrix Reloaded (2003), The Matrix Revolutions (2003) (mentioned only)

**Ross, Barney** (Sylvester Stallone) – from the movies The Expendables (2010), The Expendables 2 (2012)

**Black Vulcan** **of Earth-1 **(voiced by Buster Jones) – from the cartoon The All-New Super Friends Hour (1977-1978), Challenge Of The SuperFriends (1978), The World's Greatest SuperFriends (1979), Super Friends (1980-1983), SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984)

**Maza, Elisa **(voiced by Salli Richardson-Whitfield) – from the cartoon Gargoyles (1994-1996), Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles (1996)

**Hellboy** (Ron Perlman) – from the movie Hellboy (2004), Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)

**Alpha Hirogen** (Vaughn Armstrong) – from the TV series Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001)

**Weasley, Ginevra **_**'Ginny'**_ (Bonnie Wright) – from the movie Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone (2001), Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets (2002), Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban (2004), Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire (2005), Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix (2007), Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince (2009), Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010), Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)

**Doctor, The 4th **(Tom Baker) – from the TV series Doctor Who (1974-1981)

**Dukat, Gul** (Marc Alaimo) – from the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999)

**DEAD IN THE WEB VIII**

**4-LOM** (Star Wars) – '_killed_' in battle with Starfleet team – body later used temporarily by Megatron

**Ace of Clubs** (DC) – destroyed by Wolverine

**Apollo **(BG) – killed fighting drones

**Amazo **(DC) – turned to tin by Matter Master when Amazo showed signs of being controlled by Borg

**Antrax **(TMNT) – killed by Hawkeye

**Atom** (Real Steel) – destroyed by Borg

**Automan** (Automan) – devoured by Borg Queen

**Baron Blitzkrieg** (DC) – killed by Black Adam

**Black Manta** (DC) – drone, killed by Modulok

**Black Power Ranger** (Power Rangers) – drone, killed by the Rocketeer

**Blix – **(Legend) – destroyed by God

**Blue Power Ranger **Power Rangers) – drone, killed by Founder

**Borg Queen **(Star Trek) – killed by Gul Dukat

**Bossk** (Star Wars) – killed by General Martok

**Box** (Logan's Run) – killed by Borg

**Brago **(Space Ghost) – decapitated while attacking the Red Dwarf boys

**Brainiac **(DC) – killed by Alpha Hirogen

**Brody, Lt. James **(Seaquest DSV) – drone, killed by the Alpha Hirogen

**Buzzsaw** (Transformers) – taken over by Borg – destroyed by Starscream

**Chameleon Chief **(DC) – killed by Khan

**Clawful **(He-Man) – drone, killed by Dagger (composite of Joxer, Tim O'Neill & Dagwood)

**Collins, Barnabas** (Dark Shadows) – killed by Jake Foley & Iron Man

**Cobra Commander **(G.I. Joe) – drone, trampled to death by Kaboobie

**Cole, Marcus** (Babylon 5) – drone, killed by Lexington

**Colonel Blast **(She-Ra) – killed by Yautja/Predator

**The Commander **(Space Ghost) – blood sucked out by Mina Harker and Harmony

**Cubus **(Space Ghost) – shot with a blaster by Jake Foley drone on the Borg Queen's orders

**Cyberman #1 **(Doctor Who) – exploded during Borg attack

**Cyberman #2 **(Doctor Who) – destroyed by Borg

**Cyberman #3 **(Doctor Who) – absorbed by Borg, left for dead

**Cyberman #4 **(Doctor Who) – damaged on field and left to expire

**Dalek **(Doctor Who) – killed by Eddie Munster and Pugsley & Wednesday Addams

**Damphousse, Lt. Vanessa** (Space: A&B) – killed by Yautja/Predator

**Degaton, Per** (DC) – killed by Mekanique

**Dengar** (Star Wars) – killed by Yautja/Predator

**Dirge **(Transformers) – drone, killed fighting heroes

**Dr. Alchemy** (DC) – killed himself before he could be turned into a drone

**Dr. Mindbender** (GI Joe) – drone, died during nanite purge attempt

**Dr. Nightmare **(Space Ghost) – killed by explosion caused by the Borg

**Dr. Polaris **(DC) – shot by Allan Quatermain with lead bullet

**Dummy** (DC) – blown up by Rogue Yautja/Predator

**Ellison, James **(Sentinel) – drone, killed by Alice

**E.T. – **died while being processed as a drone

**F.L.U.F.F.I. **(Bionic 6) – made into drone with Zo'or – Balthazar killed by burying in stone

**Foley, Jake **(Jake 2.0) – drone, vaporized by Borg Queen

**Forvalokka the Soul Vampire** (Space Ghost) – died when using trance stare on Jitsu drone

**Gambler** (DC) – drone, died during nanite purge attempt

**Garibaldi, Michael **(B5) – killed by drones

**Giganta **(DC) – made a drone with Mr. Atom – killed by Black Adam

**Glasstor **(Space Ghost) – exploded by Coach Boomer

**Gnawgahyde **(G.I. Joe) – killed by Dagger (composite of Joxer, Tim O'Neill & Dagwood)

**Gog **(Gog) – destroyed by Borg attack

**Graboid #1 **(Tremors) – killed by Bobby (the Barbarian) with his magic club

**Graboid #2 **(Tremors) – killed by Hank's (the Ranger) energy bow

**Graboid #3 **(Tremors) – turned to crystal with Presto's (the Magician) magic hat

**Graboid #4 **(Tremors) – killed by Rincewind's Luggage

**Grumpy** (Land of the Lost) – died fighting Xenomorph Queen

**Hector **(Saturn 3) – destroyed by drones

**Hordak** (She-Ra) – killed by Yautja/Predator

**Huntress** (DC) – killed during fight with ThunderCats

**IG-88** (Star Wars) – killed by Yautja/Predator

**Invisible Man** (LoXG) – killed accidently by Agent J

**Joker of E-2 **(DC) – killed by Callen

**K-9** (Doctor Who) – destroyed by Ravage

**Killer Moth** (DC) – crushed by wrestling forms of Giant Man and A-M-V Man

**Kimble, John **(Kindergarten Cop) – drone, killed fighting robots

**King Kull **(DC) – head caved in by the Mighty Mightor

**King of Clubs** (DC) – fell to death fighting Borg

**Kobra Khan **(He-Man) – drone, killed by Sinbad

**Kra** (DC) – crushed by the Thing

**Krang **(TMNT) – drone, crushed by Apache Chief

**Laserbeak** (Transformers) – taken over to Borg – destroyed by Ravage

**Lazon** (DC) – stunned in air by Borg – fell and died

**Leatherhead **(TMNT) – mostly decapitated by Leeloo

**Lennier **(Babylon 5) – killed with lightsaber by Xander Harris

**Lokar** (Space Ghost) – eaten by Zorak

**Lore **(ST:tng) – destroyed by Cyborg's white sound blaster

**Lurker **(Space Ghost) – gutted by Faith

**LuLu** (Land of the Lost) – killed by Borg

**Luthor, Alexei **(DC) – drone, killed by Borg Queen

**Mad Hatter **(DC) **– **drone, killed by Zorak

**Magno Lad** (DC) – killed by flying Borg

**Kenny, McCormick** (South Park) – killed by dinosaur

**McQueen, Lt. Col. "T.C." **(Space: A&B)– killed by Yautja/Predator

**Mer-Man** (He-Man) – killed by Alien birth from chest

**Mer-Man Xenomorph **(H-Man/Alien) – killed by Ben 10 as Ripjaws

**Mettalus** (Space Ghost) – decapitated by Lister

**Mist Master **(DC) - dissipated after being extended too far

**Mister Atom **(DC) – made a drone with Giganta – destroyed by Black Adam

**Mister Mind** (DC) – dead – stepped on by Master

**Monocle **(DC) – killed in an explosion

**Mosquitor **(She-Ra) – killed by Batman Beyond

**Mother-1 **(Bionic Six) – killed by Buffy

**Mulwray, Brenan **(Mutant X) – drone, killed by Gul Dukat

**Ocean Master** (DC) – killed by Mina Harker

**Octavia** (She-Ra) – hacked up by Faith

**One-Eye **(Space Ghost) – beheaded by Faith

**Persuader** (DC) – killed by Yautja/Predator

**Piccolo, Tony **(Seaquest) – killed by Clawful

**Power Ring** (DC) – killed by Borg

**Pox (Legend) **– killed by the Mirror Universe Capt. Kirk

**Psycho-Pirate** (DC) – killed by Borg

**Queen Bee **(DC) – drone, killed by Brainiac

**Ramjet **(Transformers) – drone, head smashed in by Hellboy

**Road Pig** (GI Joe) – killed by Borg

**Ro-Man Extension XJ-9 **(Robot Monster) – destroyed fighting Borg

**The Sandman **(Space Ghost) – died falling into quicksand

**The Schemer **(Space Ghost) – accidently killed by Brago

**Seska** (Star Trek: Voy) – killed by Yautja/Predator

**Shade** (DC) – killed by Yautja/Predator

**Sigmund the Sea Monster** (Sigmund) – died saving Ben 10

**Sivana, Georgia** (DC) – drone, killed by Sivana, Jr.

**Spikor** (He-Man) – killed by Alien birth from chest

**Spikor Xenomorph **(He-Man/Alien) – killed by Conan

**Sportsmaster** (DC) – killed by golf ball hit by Death

**Sssqueeze **(He-Man) – drone, killed by Buffy

**Stockman, Baxter **(TMNT) – electrocuted by Black Vulcan

**Superwoman **(DC) – drone, killed by Hale Caesar

**T-800 unit **(Terminator) – program erased and replaced by Megatron

**Terra-Man & horse** (DC) – both killed by Yautja/Predator

**Thundercracker** (Transformers) – taken over by Borg, destroyed by Bizarro

**Tobor **(Tobor The Great) – destroyed by Borg

**The Toyman **(Space Ghost) – pulled into quicksand by the Sandman

**Toyman **(DC) – drone, killed by Alice

**Trickster** (DC) – drone, died during nanite purge attempt

**Tundro** (Herculoids) – killed by Yautja/Predator

**Two-Bad** (He-Man) – killed by Alien birth from chest

**Two-Bad Xenomorph **(He-Man/Alien) – exploded by Enik

**Uglor **(Space Ghost) – killed by the Borg

**Vultak** (She-Ra) – drone, crashed and died

**WALL-E **– died while being grafted onto E.T.

**Webstor **(He-Man) – drone, fell to death

**Whiplash** (He-Man) – killed by Alien birth from chest

**Whiplash Xenomorph **(He-Man/Alien) – killed by Ben 10 as Heatblast

**Wizard **(DC) – killed by Borg attack

**Xenomorph Queen** (Alien) – died fighting Grumpy

**Yautja** **– elder** (Predator) – suicide by explosion to kill Borg

**Yautja** **– leader** (Predator) – disintegrated by Sela

**Yautja – Rogue** (Predator) – killed by Wolverine

**Yautja** – **young hunter #1** (Predator) – killed by Deathstroke

**Yautja **– **young hunter #2** (Predator) – drone, killed by Xena drone

**Yautja** – **young hunter #3** (Predator) – killed by Igoo

**Yautja** – **young hunter #4** (Predator) – killed by Terminator

**Zo'or – **made into drone with F.L.U.F.F.I. – Balthazar killed by burying in stone

**Zuckuss** (Star Wars) – killed by Predator


End file.
